Planning tools and strategies typically stop at the building line. This section addresses some of the tools (such as building codes) outside the typical planning realm that help communities reduce risk to hazards. Tools that improve a structure’s chance of survival and protect valuable community infrastructure assets make a more resilient community. Building codes establish rules for building safely and provide engineering standards to ensure that structures located in hazard areas can withstand high winds, high waters, wildfire embers, and heavy snow load. They also protect critical infrastructure, which is the lifeline of a community during and after a major hazard event. Adopting the most current building code cycle gives a community an important boost in terms of hazard mitigation.
It is critical that land use planners work closely with building officials and emergency services personnel to coordinate the closely-related goals of planning-related regulations and building regulations. Planners can help raise and facilitate discussions of tradeoffs between competing community goals, such as historic preservation and infrastructure upgrades. Planners should strive to understand and become involved in building code issues in order to truly understand the importance of keeping the built environment resilient over time. Once buildings are erected, they may remain for many years. It is imperative that planners help educate local officials and citizens on how solid construction methodologies can help protect the community and local infrastructure from hazards.
Explore the Tools
Explore tools that communities can use to improve design and construction of structures and other important infrastructure in a community.
Residential and Community Safe Rooms
In 2014, the Natural Hazard Mitigation Association prepared the study “Hide from the Wind: Tornado Safe Rooms in Central Oklahoma” for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which analyzed tornado safe rooms in central Oklahoma—an area of the U.S. that has experienced the nation’s highest frequency of violent tornadoes.