Title: Building code modifications for enhanced resiliency

Authors: Stephen S. Szoke

Addresses: Portland Cement Association, 5420 Old Orchard Road, Skokie, IL 60077, USA

Abstract: Enhanced resilience should be a key component for buildings located in disaster prone areas to minimise negative environmental impacts, and facilitate security and community continuity. The primary emphasis of current building codes is to provide minimum levels of life safety. Thus, for hurricanes, floods, storm surges, wildland fires and other events where evacuation can be managed in a timely fashion the minimum requirements tend to be lacking with regard to providing adequate property protection and facilitating community preparedness; mitigation; response, relief and recovery. The resulting destruction typically results in excessive amounts of: 1) materials disposed in landfills; 2) resources expended on disaster response, relief, and recovery; 3) time required for services, residents, and businesses to return. The concepts of enhanced resilience are discussed and a set of recommended code criteria are provided for use in disaster prone areas and for designing sustainable buildings.

Keywords: building codes; community continuity; community preparedness; construction industry; building design; disaster resistance; critical infrastructures; life safety; mitigation; property protection; infrastructure resilience; sustainability; resiliency; emergency evacuation; emergency management; emergency response; emergency relief; emergency recovery; disaster response; disaster relief; disaster recovery; enhanced resilience; disaster prone areas; sustainable buildings; natural disasters.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCIS.2014.059540

International Journal of Critical Infrastructures, 2014 Vol.10 No.1, pp.52 - 66

Received: 19 Dec 2012
Accepted: 08 Mar 2013
Published online: 31 May 2014 *

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