[House Hearing, 108 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
STRENGTHENING WINDSTORM HAZARD
MITIGATION: AN EXAMINATION OF
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE EFFORTS
=======================================================================
FIELD HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 9, 2004
__________
Serial No. 108-40
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/science
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______
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE
HON. SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT, New York, Chairman
RALPH M. HALL, Texas BART GORDON, Tennessee
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois
CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
DANA ROHRABACHER, California LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California
JOE BARTON, Texas NICK LAMPSON, Texas
KEN CALVERT, California JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut
NICK SMITH, Michigan MARK UDALL, Colorado
ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland DAVID WU, Oregon
VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan MICHAEL M. HONDA, California
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota BRAD MILLER, North Carolina
GEORGE R. NETHERCUTT, JR., LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee
Washington SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma ZOE LOFGREN, California
JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois BRAD SHERMAN, California
WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland BRIAN BAIRD, Washington
W. TODD AKIN, Missouri DENNIS MOORE, Kansas
TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York
MELISSA A. HART, Pennsylvania JIM MATHESON, Utah
J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia DENNIS A. CARDOZA, California
PHIL GINGREY, Georgia VACANCY
ROB BISHOP, Utah VACANCY
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas VACANCY
JO BONNER, Alabama
TOM FEENEY, Florida
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas
C O N T E N T S
February 9, 2004
Page
Witness List..................................................... 2
Hearing Charter.................................................. 3
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Randy Neugebauer, Member, Committee
on Science, U.S. House of Representatives...................... 7
Written Statement............................................ 8
Statement by Representative Dennis Moore, Member, Committee on
Science, U.S. House of Representatives......................... 9
Written Statement............................................ 10
Witnesses:
Dr. Ernest W. Kiesling, Professor of Civil Engineering, Texas
Tech University
Oral Statement............................................... 11
Written Statement............................................ 13
Biography.................................................... 23
Financial Disclosure......................................... 23
Dr. Charles Meade, Senior Physical Scientist, RAND Corporation
Oral Statement............................................... 24
Written Statement............................................ 26
Biography.................................................... 32
Dr. Bogusz Bienkiewicz, Professor, Department of Civil
Engineering, Colorado State University
Oral Statement............................................... 32
Written Statement............................................ 34
Biography.................................................... 42
Financial Disclosure......................................... 43
Mr. Bryan L. Shofner, President, Shofner and Associates Insurance
Agency
Oral Statement............................................... 44
Written Statement............................................ 46
Biography.................................................... 47
Financial Disclosure......................................... 49
Discussion....................................................... 50
Appendix 1: Additional Material for the Record
Wind Engineering Research and Outreach Plan to Reduce Losses Due
to Wind Hazards, February 2004, American Association for Wind
Engineering in collaboration with the American Society of Civil
Engineers...................................................... 68
STRENGTHENING WINDSTORM HAZARD MITIGATION: AN EXAMINATION OF PUBLIC AND
PRIVATE EFFORTS
----------
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2004
House of Representatives,
Committee on Science,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 1:30 p.m., at the
Merket Alumni Center, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas,
Hon. Randy Neugebauer, presiding.
HEARING CHARTER
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Strengthening Windstorm Hazard
Mitigation: An Examination of
Public and Private Efforts
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2004
1:30 P.M.-3:30 P.M.
MERKET ALUMNI CENTER,
TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY,
LUBBOCK, TEXAS
1. Purpose
On Monday, February 9, 2004, at 1:30 p.m., the House Science
Committee will hold a field hearing to examine the status of windstorm
hazard mitigation in the United States, and to consider the role of
federal research and development in windstorm hazard reduction.
2. Witnesses
Dr. Charles Meade is a senior physical scientist with the RAND
Corporation's Science and Technology Policy Institute in Washington,
DC. He is the primary author of ``Assessing Federal Research
Developments for Hazard Loss Reduction,'' a study prepared for the
White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in 2003.
Dr. Ernst W. Kiesling is a Professor of Civil Engineering at Texas Tech
University. Dr. Kiesling has 37 years of teaching, research, and
administrative experience at Texas Tech University, including serving
as Chairman of the Civil Engineering Department from 1969 to 1988. Dr.
Kiesling was the first to develop an ``in-residence'' tornado shelter,
providing occupant protection during tornadic events. The research
provided the basis for a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
publication on in-residence shelter design.
Mr. Bryan Shofner is President of Shofner & Associates Insurance Agency
in Lubbock, Texas. Mr. Shofner was named ``Young Agent of the Year'' in
2001 by the Independent Insurance Agents of Texas. Mr. Shofner has been
a longtime member of his local, State, and national independent
insurance agents associations, including serving as President of the
Lubbock Association of Insurance Agents.
Dr. Bogusz Bienkiewicz is a Professor of Civil Engineering at the
Colorado State University Wind Engineering and Fluids Laboratory. Dr.
Bienkiewicz is also the Vice President of the American Association for
Wind Engineering, Secretary of the American Society of Civil Engineers
Committee on Wind Effects, and Co-chairman of the International Wind
Engineering Forum.
3. Overarching Questions
The hearing will address the following overarching questions:
1. How vulnerable is the built environment in the United
States to windstorm hazards? What are some of the top
opportunities for, and primary barriers to, reducing these
vulnerabilities?
3. What is the size, structure, and focus of federal wind
hazard mitigation efforts, particularly with regard to research
and development?
3. What gaps in data exist with regard to our knowledge and
understanding of windstorm hazards, and how could the overall
wind hazard mitigation portfolio be refocused or otherwise
strengthened to improve mitigation in the United States?
4. How can non-federal entities such as the insurance industry
and State and local governments contribute to, and benefit
from, improved wind hazard mitigation?
4. Brief Overview
The United States currently sustains several billion
dollars each year in property and economic losses due to
windstorms. While estimates of annualized windstorm damages are
highly variable and limited in scope, the National Weather
Service estimates that between 1995 and 2002, hurricanes,
tornadoes, and thunderstorm winds caused on average $4.5
billion in damage per year. The American Society of Civil
Engineers has estimated windstorm damages to be in excess of $5
billion per year.
The most powerful hurricane in the last century to
hit the United States was Hurricane Andrew, in August of 1992.
It caused 58 deaths and approximately $27 billion in damages.
In addition, more than one million people were evacuated from
Southern Florida because of the storm.
A variety of cost-effective windstorm hazard
mitigation measures exist, and many more are undergoing
research and development. It is unclear to what extent these
mitigation technologies have been adopted, but it is generally
agreed that they have been under-utilized, and that significant
improvements in the wind resistance of buildings and other
structures will not be achieved without improved incentives at
the local and individual level. This fact, combined with
growing populations in coastal areas particularly susceptible
to major windstorms, has led to substantial increases in the
overall windstorm vulnerabilities.
Federal windstorm hazard mitigation efforts span
several agencies, including the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA), National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST), National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA), National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Department
of Energy (DOE). Evaluations of the size, scope, and
effectiveness of these mitigation efforts have found
significant room for improvement. For example, a 1999 report by
the National Academy of Sciences found that: ``. . .there is
still a lack of leadership, focus, and coordination of wind-
hazard mitigation activities across all agencies, and funding
for research and development specifically targeting wind-hazard
reduction issues is insufficient.''
5. Background
Hurricanes and Tornadoes
High winds can easily destroy poorly constructed buildings and
mobile homes. Hurricanes can reach constant wind speeds greater than
155 mph and extend outward as far as 400 miles. While the National
Weather Service is able to detect hurricanes days before they make
landfall, predicting when, where, and with what force a hurricane will
hit remains an inexact science.
Tornadoes generally occur near the trailing edge of a thunderstorm,
though they are also often produced by hurricanes. Tornado winds can
reach up to 300 mph and can be powerful enough to lift homes off
foundations. Tornadoes are much more difficult to detect than
hurricanes with an average lead-time for warnings of only 12 minutes.
This makes evacuation nearly impossible, a factor that led to the
development and implementation of in-residence tornado shelters,
developed from research performed at Texas Tech University.
Since 1950, tornadoes have claimed over 4,400 lives. Texas has been
particularly vulnerable, averaging 124 tornadoes each year--more than
double the average of any other state. On May 11, 1970, a tornado
ripped through downtown Lubbock, Texas, killing 26 people, injuring at
least 1,500 more, and causing more than $530 million in damage.
While the Federal Government does not maintain a comprehensive
windstorm loss database, the National Weather Service does compile
damage estimates that demonstrate the tremendous costs of windstorms
(Table 1). Also, the insurance industry maintains separate loss
databases that measure damage to insured property. However, according
to ``Disasters by Design: A Reassessment of Natural Hazards in the
United States,'' a 1999 report by the National Academy of Sciences,
insurance industry data may represent only a small percentage of total
losses because many property owners do not buy coverage against
hurricanes and other natural hazards.
With more people than ever before living near coastlines,
vulnerability to wind hazards in the U.S. is steadily increasing.
Already, more than one in six Americans live in a county that lies next
to the eastern Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico coast. In addition, the
coastal population is growing rapidly, particularly from Texas through
the Carolinas. In popular resort areas that are common along the
coastline, numbers often swell even further when holiday, weekend, and
vacation visitors arrive. These large and increasing populations have
resulted in substantial increases in buildings and infrastructure in
high-risk coastal areas that are also vulnerable to windstorms.
Federal Windstorm Hazard Mitigation Efforts
The size and scope of federal investments in windstorm hazards
research and development (R&D) is generally agreed to be in the range
of a few million dollars, though specific numbers are hard to come by,
in part because of the fragmented and uncoordinated nature of these
efforts. Agencies contributing to this effort include FEMA, NOAA, NIST,
NSF, and DOE.
The bulk of the windstorm hazard funding is directed toward
fundamental research and development into the atmospheric and
meteorological aspects of windstorms, contributing to a greater
understanding of weather-related phenomena, but generally without
specific mitigation applications in mind. A smaller portion of the
windstorm hazard research and development effort is directed toward
structural and engineering aspects of buildings and infrastructure
impacted by windstorms. In a 1999 report, the National Academy of
Sciences recommended that: ``The Federal Government should coordinate
existing federal activities and develop, in conjunction with state and
local governments, private industry, the research community, and other
interested stakeholder groups, a national wind-hazard reduction
program. Congress should consider designating sufficient funds to
establish and support a national program of this nature.''
Unfortunately, simply developing technical solutions will not
reduce vulnerability to wind hazards. FEMA and the insurance industry
have both determined that improving the wind resistance of buildings
will only be achieved when there is a demand for wind-resistant
construction by homeowners. Solving the wind-vulnerability problem will
not only require coordinated work in scientific research and technology
development, but education, public policy, the behavioral sciences, and
technology transfer as well.
6. Questions for Witnesses
The witnesses were asked to address the following questions in
their testimony:
Dr. Meade
What regions of the country and characteristics of
the built environment are most vulnerable to windstorm hazards?
Are these vulnerabilities increasing or decreasing, and why?
What are some of the opportunities for, and primary barriers
to, reducing these vulnerabilities?
Approximately how much money does the Federal
Government spend per year on wind hazard mitigation research
and development? Where is this effort currently focused (i.e.,
direct vs. indirect research, engineering, economic,
meteorological, etc.)? Where are the primary gaps with regard
to our knowledge and understanding of windstorm hazards? How
could the federal wind hazard research and development
portfolio be refocused or otherwise strengthened to improve
mitigation in the United States?
Dr. Bienkiewicz and Dr. Kiesling
What regions of the country and characteristics of
the built environment are most vulnerable to windstorm hazards?
Are these vulnerabilities increasing or decreasing, and why?
What are some of the top opportunities for, and primary
barriers to, reducing these vulnerabilities?
What are some of the processes that are in place for
transferring new technologies to government agencies and the
private sector for implementation? What role do the research
activities at Texas Tech University and Colorado State
University play in implementation of new mitigation techniques?
What steps could be taken to strengthen the federal
wind hazard research and development portfolio in the United
States, particularly with regard to planning, coordination, and
focus within the research and development portfolio?
Mr. Shofner
How would you characterize the size and focus of
ongoing wind hazard mitigation research and development being
performed by the insurance industry? To what extent do
insurance industry research efforts build on research done by
universities or the government, and vice-versa? How does the
insurance industry work with Federal, State, and local
governments to share data that may help contribute to windstorm
hazards reductions?
Approximately how much damage do wind hazards cause
in the United States on an annual basis, and are these damages
broken down by variables such as building types, structural
characteristics, and geography? What types of damage are taken
into account in compiling these damage estimates, and what
types are not included? What data gaps exist with regard to our
knowledge and understanding windstorm hazards?
What role does the insurance industry play in
encouraging implementation of existing mitigation techniques in
retrofitting and new home construction? To what extent do
insurance policies consider and incorporate incentives for
implementation of these mitigation techniques?
Mr. Neugebauer. We will call this hearing to order on
Strengthening Windstorm Hazard Mitigation for purposes of the
examination of public and private efforts.
I want to welcome everyone to this hearing where we will
examine the status of windstorm hazard mitigation in the United
States and consider the role of federal research and
development in windstorm hazard reduction.
On May 11th, 1970, tragedy struck Lubbock, Texas. An F-5
tornado ripped through downtown Lubbock. Twenty-six people were
killed, and at least 500 were injured. The tornado had winds
estimated in excess of 200 miles per hour and damaged or
destroyed a large section of the city, mainly north and east of
19th and University, where we sit today.
And as a little postscript to that, I was at the corner of
22nd and University in a friend of mine's home, but I should
have been over on 5th and Avenue Q in my apartment, which was
totally destroyed by the tornado, and so I can testify that my
person was safe, but my property was not. We are going to be
talking about some issues that revolve around that today.
In just a few moments, between 9:35 p.m. and the time that
the funnel lifted into the clouds, the tornado devastated the
community along an eight and a half mile wide path. It wrought
havoc along a track that was one and a half miles wide in
downtown Lubbock, to one-fourth mile wide as it passed over the
Weather Bureau Office located at the Lubbock Airport. The
twister was responsible for $125 million in damage and an
estimated 15 square miles of the city either damaged or
destroyed.
The National Weather Service estimates that between 1995
and 2002 hurricanes, tornadoes, and thunderstorm winds caused
an average of $4.5 billion in damage each year during that
period. Texas alone averages 124 tornadoes a year, which is
more than double the average of any other state.
Technology advancements in the second half of the century
have contributed to better, more accurate severe weather
watches and warnings from the National Weather Service,
ultimately saving countless lives.
The biggest advancement for severe weather forecasting was
the development of the Doppler radar. Scientists and other
researchers took the airborne radar development by the U.S.
Military during World War II and applied it to weather
forecasting and severe storm identification. The ultimate
result was the next generation of radar Doppler that we
currently use today.
Advancements in computer technology also made some progress
in the area of weather prediction, allowing meteorologists to
apply physics in replicating motions of the atmosphere. This,
combined with diligent analysis to recognize weather patterns,
helped advance severe weather prediction to its current level
of an average lead time of over 11 minutes.
Even as we build on our current weather prediction
successes and create new resources for predicting windstorms at
a greater rate, the United States continues to sustain several
billion dollars each year in property and economic losses due
to windstorms and human costs are--well, human costs are also
very painful. West Texas is particularly vulnerable to the high
winds in tornadoes.
A variety of windstorm hazard mitigation measures exist and
many more are undergoing research and development. For example,
in the past five years the Texas Tech Wind Engineering Research
Center has received funding under a cooperative grant with the
National Institute for Standards and Technology to research the
detrimental effects of windstorms on buildings and to reduce
losses from windstorm events. Their work has led to many
accomplishments on the national scope. This year they have
received an additional $994,000 to carry on their research to
improve the economy of shelters and wind resistant
construction.
Improving the wind resistance of buildings will only be
achieved when there is demand for wind resistant construction
by homeowners. The tornado in Lubbock that was so destructive
more than 30 years ago is a reminder of how vulnerable we are
and how serious we should be about severe weather safety and
preparedness.
For the next couple of hours we will hear from expert
witnesses, who I will probably introduce in a few minutes, on
how current windstorm hazard mitigation works and we will
discuss how the Federal Government can help facilitate further
research. I look forward to hearing everyone's testimony and I
am proud to bring this hearing to the 19th District.
Now I would like to recognize my colleague on the House
Science Committee, Congressman Dennis Moore from Kansas, so
that he may make some opening remarks. Congressman Moore has
been a leader on this issue and currently serves as co-chair of
the Wind Hazard Reduction Caucus, an organization which focuses
on increasing the awareness of the Members of Congress about
the public safety and economic loss issues associated with
wind. I would like to thank him and welcome him to Lubbock for
this hearing and look forward to working with him on this very
important issue. Mr. Moore.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Neugebauer follows:]
Prepared Statement of Representative Randy Neugebauer
I want to welcome everyone to this hearing where we'll examine the
status of windstorm hazard mitigation in the United States and consider
the role of federal research and development in windstorm hazard
reduction.
On May 11, 1970 tragedy struck Lubbock, Texas. An F5 tornado ripped
through downtown Lubbock. Twenty-six people were killed and at least
500 more were injured. The tornado had winds estimated in excess of 200
mph, and damaged or destroyed a large section of the city, mainly north
and east of 19th Street and University Avenue--where we sit today.
In the few moments between 9:35 p.m. and the time the funnel lifted
into the clouds, the tornado devastated the community along an 81/2
mile path. It wrought havoc along a track that was 11/2 miles wide in
downtown Lubbock to one-fourth mile wide as it passed over the Weather
Bureau Office located at the Lubbock Airport. The twister was
responsible for 125 million dollars in damage with an estimated 15
square miles of the city damaged or destroyed.
The National Weather Service estimates that between 1995 and 2002,
hurricanes, tornadoes, and thunderstorm winds caused an average of 4.5
billion dollars in damage every year. Texas alone averages 124
tornadoes a year, which is more than double the average of any other
state.
Technological advancements in the second half of the century have
contributed to better, more accurate severe weather watches and
warnings from the National Weather Service, ultimately saving countless
lives. The biggest advancement for severe weather forecasting was the
development of Doppler radar. Scientists and other researchers took the
airborne radar developed by the U.S. military during World War II and
applied it to weather forecasting and severe storm identification. The
ultimate result was the Next Generation Radar Doppler that we currently
use.
Advancements in computer technology also led to progress in
numerical weather prediction, allowing meteorologists to apply physics
in replicating motions of the atmosphere. This, combined with diligent
analysis to recognize weather patterns, helped advance severe weather
prediction to its current level of an average lead time of over 11
minutes.
Even as we build on our current weather prediction successes and
create new resources to predict windstorms at a greater rate, the
United States continues to sustain several billion dollars each year in
property and economic losses due to windstonns--and the human costs are
all too painful. West Texas is particularly vulnerable to high winds
and tornadoes.
A variety of cost-effective windstorm hazard mitigation measures
exists, and many more are undergoing research and development.
For example, in the past five years the Texas Tech Wind Engineering
Research Center has received funding under a cooperative agreement with
the National Institute for Standards and Technology to research the
detrimental effects of windstorms on buildings and to reduce losses
from windstorm events. Their work has led to many accomplishments on
the national scope. This year they have received an additional 994,100
dollars to carry on their research to improve the economy of shelters
and wind resistant construction.
Improving the wind resistance of buildings will only be achieved
when there is a demand for wind-resistant construction by homeowners.
The tornado in Lubbock that was so destructive more than 30 years ago
is a reminder of how vulnerable we are and how serious we should be
about severe weather safety and preparedness. For the next couple of
hours we will hear from expert witnesses, who I will properly introduce
in a few minutes, on how the current windstorm hazard mitigation
process works and we will discuss how the Federal Government can help
facilitate further research. I look forward to hearing everyone's
testimony and I'm proud to bring this hearing to the 19th District.
Now I'd like to recognize my colleague on the House Science
Committee, Congressman Dennis Moore from Kansas so that lie can make
his opening remarks. Congressman Moore has been a leader on this issue
and currently serves as Co-chair of the Wind Hazard Reduction Caucus,
an organization which focuses on increasing the awareness of Members of
Congress about the public safety and economic loss issues associated
with wind. I'd like to thank him and welcome him to Lubbock for this
hearing. I look forward to working with him on this important issue.
Mr. Moore. Thank you very, very much, Congressman
Neugebauer, for inviting me here today. I really appreciate
your coming up with the idea for this hearing today here in
Lubbock and for hosting and basically chairing this committee.
I am looking forward to the testimony of our panel of experts
here today.
I also want to thank Texas Tech for working with me for the
past three Congresses. I have been in Congress now, I'm
starting my sixth year. Texas Tech has worked closely with us
and my staff in the three Congresses on legislation on this
topic. To keep this truly bi-partisan I will also recognize and
thank Representative Stenholm for helping to give an initial
earmark that brought $3.8 million to the Texas Tech Wind
Disaster Research Program in 1998, but I think we owe a special
debt of gratitude again to the Congressman here for bringing us
here today for this very, very important hearing.
Five months after I took office in 1999, my hometown of
Wichita, Kansas, was hit by an F-4 tornado which plowed through
the suburb of Hayesville, Kansas, killing six, injuring 150,
and causing over $140 million in property damage. The
devastation of this attack motivated me to do something about
the old Mark Twain adage, ``Let's do something about the
weather.'' I put together legislation modeled after NEHRP
[National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program], the successful
earthquake research program begun over 30 years ago. My
legislation's goal is to mitigate loss of life and property due
to wind and related hazards and I am proud to say that the
Congressman here is a co-sponsor of this legislation, which I
think is very important.
I utilized comments from the American Society of Civil
Engineers, the American Association of Homebuilders, the
insurance industry, meteorologists, emergency managers,
academia, industry, and the Manufactured Housing Association to
try to fine tune our legislation and on May 4 of 2003, almost
four years to the day after the deadly 1999 Kansas and Oklahoma
tornadoes, tornadoes again touched down in metro Kansas City
and the surrounding suburbs, which is my district, as well as
in many of Science Committee colleagues' Districts, destroying
property, killing and injuring our constituents.
These tornadoes didn't check before they hit to see whether
they were Republicans or Democrats. Frankly, partisan politics
has no place in the discussion here and I think it is very,
very important and encouraging, and I think hopeful people in
this country are waiting to see us find an issue where we can
work truly together on a bi-partisan, non-partisan basis and do
the right thing for the people in this country. It's not a
Republican issue. It's not a Democratic issue. It's a human
issue and it's a human tragedy when a storm like this strikes
and destroys property and takes peoples' lives. I have seen it
in my district.
I know you have seen it here. I know Lubbock, Texas, was
hurt very, very badly several years ago as the Congressman
said.
I want to again thank you, Randy, for having this important
hearing. I'd also like to thank the witnesses for sharing their
expertise here today and we look forward to your testimony and
asking you some questions. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Moore follows:]
Prepared Statement of Representative Dennis Moore
I would like to thank Representative Randy Neugebauer for inviting
me here today to Texas Tech and for working with me for the past three
Congresses on legislation on this topic and Representative Charlie
Stenholm for getting the initial earmark that brought $3.8 million to
the Texas Tech's wind disaster research program in 1998.
Five months after I took office in 1999, my hometown of Wichita,
Kansas, was attacked by a F4 tornado, which plowed through the suburb
of Haysville killing six, injuring 150, and causing over 140 million
dollars in damage. The devastation of this attack motivated me to do
something ``about the weather'' to paraphrase the old Mark Twain adage.
I put together a piece of legislation modeled after NEHRP, the
successful earthquake research program begun over 30 years ago. My
legislation's goal is to mitigate loss of life and property due to wind
and related hazards.
I utilized comments from the American Society of Civil Engineers,
the American Association of Home Builders, the insurance industry,
meteorologists, emergency managers, academia, industry, and the
manufactured housing associations to fine-tune the legislation.
On May 4, 2003, almost four years to the day after the deadly 1999
Kansas and Oklahoma tornadoes, tornadoes touched down in metro Kansas
City and the surrounding suburbs as well as in many of my Science
Committee colleagues' districts, destroying property, killing and
injuring our constituents.
These tornadoes did not check with Congress to see if they were
hitting Republican or Democratic districts, just hit both. This is not
a Republican or a Democratic issue, it is a human issue--it is a human
tragedy. These windstorms destroy lives; I have seen it in my own
district and know many of my colleagues have seen it in theirs.
Thank you again, Rep. Neugebauer, for having this important hearing
and I would also like to thank the witnesses for sharing their
expertise on this extremely important issue.
Mr. Neugebauer. Thank you. I am going to just briefly
introduce the panel members to you today. From my left and
going right, Dr. Ernst Kiesling, who is Professor of Civil
Engineering at Texas Tech University. Dr. Kiesling has 37 years
of teaching, research, and administrative experience at Texas
Tech University, including serving as Chair of the Civil
Engineering Department from 1969 to 1988. Dr. Kiesling was the
first to develop an in-residence tornado shelter, providing
occupant protection during tornadic events. The research
provided the basis for the Federal Emergency Management
Agency's qualification on in-residence shelter design.
Next we have Dr. Charles Meade. He is a senior physical
scientist with the RAND Corporation of Science and Technology
Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. He is the primary author
of ``Assessing Federal Research Development for Hazard Loss
Reduction,'' a piece prepared for the White House Office of
Science and Technology Policy in 2003.
And then Dr. Bo Bienkiewicz. He is a Professor of Civil
Engineering at Colorado State University Wind Engineering and
Fluids Laboratory. Dr. Bienkiewicz is also the Vice-President
of the American Association of Wind Engineering, Secretary of
the American Society of Civil Engineering Committee on Wind
Effects, and Co-Chairman of the International Wind Engineering
Forum.
And finally Dr., I mean Mr. Bryan Shofner. He is President
of Shofner & Associates Insurance Agency in Lubbock, Texas. Mr.
Shofner was named Young Agent of the Year in 2001 by the
Independent Insurance Agents of Texas.
Mr. Shofner is also a long-time member of his local, state,
and national independent insurance agent associations,
including serving as President of the Lubbock Association of
Insurance Agents.
As you know, the format is to give your opening testimony.
We are not going to be real strict on the five minutes, but we
would like to make those as brief as possible. Your full
opening statement will be entered into the record. And then we
would then open up for time for question and answer. Dr.
Kiesling.
STATEMENT OF DR. ERNST W. KIESLING, PROFESSOR OF CIVIL
ENGINEERING, TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY.
Mr. Kiesling. Thank you for being here today and for your
purpose in being here. I am privileged to be the spokesperson
for the Wind Science and Engineering Research Program at Texas
Tech. I am particularly honored to be standing in for Dr.
Kishor Mehta, the long-time Director of the Center, who at this
moment is in Asia delivering papers at an international wind
conference. Otherwise, he would have been here.
We have engaged in hazard mitigation activities since 1970
when the tornado that Congressman Neugebauer mentioned came to
Lubbock, Texas. Improving buildings for wind resistance has
been a major focus of our program throughout its history.
Damage to buildings, especially houses, comprises a major
segment of wind damage so much of my testimony will relate to
that segment of the broad field of wind engineering, wind
mitigation research.
Our research in hazard mitigation has two major
objectives--saving lives and reducing economic losses. The
reports and testimonies of other presenters at the table will
define the nature and magnitude of our growing vulnerability
and discuss the status of research and development efforts.
I will simply give a snapshot of the one productive hazard
mitigation program I am familiar with and list some of the
opportunities for further reducing our vulnerability.
The collaborative efforts of a number of universities, most
notably Colorado State University with its NSF project, have
made progress in a number of areas important to curbing the
spiraling economic losses to windstorms. I think our major
progress in hazard mitigation has been in damage documentation.
We have documented the damage in over 130 major storms now in
this country and in Australia.
Storm shelters, most commonly known as safe rooms, have
gone from an inspiration to a concept, to utilization, to the
establishment of an industry. We have come a long way in
understanding wind characteristics through laboratory, full-
scale tests, and field studies, as well as through
observations. We have studied wind effects on buildings in the
laboratory and simulations using, for example, a C-130
aircraft. We have made observations in the field on the effects
of winds. This played heavily in standards and code
development, the ASCE 7, and we are currently involved with the
International Code Counsel in developing a national consensus
standard for storm shelters. We have been involved in
technology transfer through publications, short courses,
outreach, and heavily involved in education and inter-
disciplinary education at the graduate level to produce
graduates who understand the hazards and have potential
solutions for meeting those challenges of the hazards.
Yet some of these same areas represent the most fertile
ones for the future. We do not have a very good understanding
of fluctuating wind blows, particularly in tornadoes and
perhaps not even in hurricanes. And then we need to simulate
those fluctuating wind fields in the laboratory so that we can
economically study the effects of those winds.
The knowledge of building resistance to wind loads is not
well known. Progressive failures in the buildings when
subjected to these fluctuating wind loads leave a lot of
challenges for us. We continue to document damage, but we need
to develop a consistent database to make those useful in
calibrating wind loss damage models, verifying benefit to cost
ratio in theories for improvements, developing uniform
standards as a basis for building codes, and influencing the
attitudes and behaviors of people.
I think the most effective mitigation actions will be taken
when building owners perceive that benefits will be derived
from investments made in mitigation measures. They must be able
to make well-informed decisions by having credible information
available to them and the research community bears the
responsibility for providing that information.
There are a number of barriers to progress. Obviously, the
limited funding, the access to mitigation funding, mitigation
activities, is sometimes hindered by the, say, the strict
limitations of funding agencies. That needs to be overcome and
I think in writing legislation, we can do that.
There are a number of other limitations, but let me get to
the bottom line and say that I view our program here as having
made considerable progress in producing some important initial
results. A synergy has developed among researchers here and
among collaborating institutions. With modest funding we have
conducted an applications-oriented research and development
that has resulted in some improvements in making buildings more
resistant to extreme winds. We believe the benefit to cost
ratio is large for the investments made, but the significance
of this program is not in the results obtained today, rather
these results create a platform from which to launch further
research and the program serves as an example of what can be
accomplished through focused, sustained research and
development efforts.
The seemingly daunting challenges cannot be addressed
effectively by a single institution or agency. To be effective
in curbing spiraling wind damage losses we must have a
coalition of diverse agencies and disciplines pursuing
comprehensive, coordinated, multidisciplinary research and
development that is focused on the wind hazard and coupled to
the implementation strategies.
With such a focused effort, supported by adequate levels of
sustained funding, we can expand the synergy of this small
program to the national level and include multiple institutions
and agencies to effectively pursue the goal of curbing economic
losses from extreme winds. The American people will be the
beneficiaries of investments we make now. We are confident that
the payoff will be significant with benefits to cost ratios
uncommonly high for research efforts and I would simply say in
closing that we really appreciate your support in the past and
for considering the hazard mitigation effort in the future.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kiesling follows:]
Prepared Statement of Ernst W. Kiesling
The Potential of Research
The common interest that brings us together is curbing the
spiraling losses inflicted upon our country by windstorms. My
presentation and report focus largely on one applied research program
at Texas Tech University that has proven effective. This program has
produced results that are being used by facilities designers to provide
occupant protection and to mitigate the effects of windstorms. The
model's importance lies not in what has been accomplished--albeit
significant as a pioneering effort--but rather to reveal what might be
achieved when this model is expanded from a synergistic labor of a few
researchers to a focused, coordinated effort among many diverse teams
working toward a common goal at several of our leading research and
implementation institutions.
Losses
The death, destruction, and disruptions associated with windstorms
are felt by all. And while consistent databases on damage and economic
impacts are lacking, we can draw conclusions about the increasing
devastation and waste of the windstorm hazard. For example, of the ten
most costly catastrophes in the U.S., eight are weather-related. In the
past 25 years, the U.S. has experienced 57 weather-related disasters in
which damages exceeded $1 billion. The total normalized losses from
these events totals over $355 billion.
Windstorms are prominent among natural hazards, accounting for
about two-thirds of the total losses. The percent of insured losses
shown in the pie chart are for the ten year period of 1985-95. Figures
in this form are not available beyond 1995.
Population growth, urbanization, and increased property values in
harm's way will push future economic losses even higher. We can curb
these losses through large-scale, coordinated, multi-disciplinary
research connected to effective implementation strategies. Such
programs will, over time, have large benefit-to-cost ratios.
Past investments in research and technology have produced improved
prediction and warning systems, reducing death and injuries resulting
from windstorms. Better warnings have facilitated evacuations from
hurricanes, moving people out of harm's way. But population growth has
made evacuation less viable in some regions, forcing an alternative
strategy--sheltering in place. This is a good strategy for alleviating
problems associated with evacuation, but will prove effective only if a
sufficient number of shelter spaces are available. Shelter deficits are
large in some areas. Without protective shelters that can withstand
extreme winds and windborne debris, large-scale casualties are likely,
reversing the decreasing death rate of recent decades. Much research is
needed toward economical and safe shelter design and cost-effective
mitigation of property losses.
National Research Needs
Recent reports by various agencies help define the research needed
to abate the windstorm hazard. Over the years, the National Research
Council has published a number of useful reports that define the wind
hazard and point to needed research. Most recently the RAND report,
presented at this hearing by Charles Meade, clearly illuminates needed
research and some challenges in implementation. The report of the
American Association for Wind Engineering, prepared and presented by
Dr. Bogusz Bienkiewicz, yields data emphasizing the importance of
mitigation efforts and presents details of a proposed national program
for mitigating the effects of windstorms.
This report, presented by Texas Tech University, deals primarily
with progress made in some research areas along with challenges and
future opportunities for further research in those areas, and it shows
some facilities that are available for continued use by the research
community. Technology transfer and education is a significant component
of the ongoing effort at Texas Tech University.
Windstorm Hazard Mitigation at Texas Tech: An Overview
Windstorm hazard mitigation research and development started at
Texas Tech University on May 11, 1970 when a severe tornado affected
half the constructed facilities of the city of Lubbock, killing 26
people and injuring more than 500. A team of researchers from the Civil
Engineering Department at Texas Tech joined forces with a special
committee of the National Research Council in documenting damage and
destruction of buildings by wind forces of the tornado. Since 1970,
university personnel have documented and archived damage photographs
and other data in more than 130 windstorm events.
The Institute for Disaster Research (IDR) organized and coordinated
early programs in windstorm hazard mitigation at Texas Tech. In the
1970s, the Institute pursued research in the destructive nature of
tornado and hurricane winds on buildings, enabling them to provide
information to:
The National Weather Service--opening windows in
tornadoes does not help
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission--credible size of
windborne debris
The public--safest places in houses are in a small
central room
School officials--inside hallways are the best areas
to seek refuge; avoid large span gymnasiums.
Under the sponsorship of the National Science Foundation (NSF),
Defense Civil Preparedness Agency (currently FEMA), National Severe
Storms Laboratory (NSSL) and the State of Texas, the Institute
published papers, reports, and guidelines for occupant protection and
engineering perspectives of tornadic storms.
In the 1980s, with the change of our name to the Wind Engineering
Research Center, personnel of the center continued research in wind
effects on buildings and the implications of damage. Significant items
of technology transfer included the upgrading of wind load standards
(chaired the ANSI A 58.1 and ASCE 7 Wind Load Committees), defining
consequences of window glass breakage due to windborne debris, and
assessing high roof corner pressures obtained in field experiments.
The research program expanded in the 1990s to include meteorology
and damage economics; the Center changed its name to Wind Science and
Engineering (WISE) Research Center in order to reflect the
multidisciplinary approach into which it had evolved. One of the
significant research pursuits was the ten-year Cooperative Research in
Wind Engineering between Colorado State University and Texas Tech
University, which was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
This research effort was multidisciplinary and involved fifteen faculty
members from the two institutions. The cooperative basic research
permitted expansion of research in ground-level wind characteristics,
wind damage economics, and wind tunnel and field studies for low-rise
building loads. Technology transfer was accomplished for shelter
design, leading to prescriptive designs for residential shelters,
published by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Implementation of storm shelter (Safe Room) research resulted in the
birth of the storm shelter industry and the formation of the National
Storm Shelter Association (NSSA) who foster quality in the shelter
industry. The Cooperative program also produced building damage
prediction models through development of an expert system, established
the Information Outreach Center, and graduated students well-versed in
windstorm damage and mitigation.
Multidisciplinary research in the WISE Center continues under the
sponsorship of the National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST) and other agencies and private organizations. Currently, faculty
members in engineering, atmospheric science, economics, mathematics,
and architecture are involved in wind-related research. The facilities
of debris impact testing, field site (with a 200-meter tower) at Reese
Technology Center, West Texas Mesonet, portable meteorological towers
including the SMART radar, and a wind tunnel, permit us to continue our
pursuit of research in wind effects on buildings and structures,
windstorm damage economics, wind characteristics in hurricanes and
tornadoes, the economical design of shelters, soil erosion, and wind
energy.
Over the past three decades, WISE Center personnel have pursued
collaborative wind research projects with agencies, organizations, and
universities, including NIST, the National Science Foundation (NSF),
the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), the National
Oceanic and Atmosphere Agency (NOAA), Texas Department of Insurance,
Colorado State University, University of Western Ontario, Johns Hopkins
University, Clemson University, University of Florida, Texas A&M-
Kingsville, and the University of Oklahoma. In the following, a
synopsis of research areas of damage documentation, storm shelters,
wind effects, standards and codes, wind characteristics, and technology
transfer/education are given. The synopsis gives a brief description of
the research followed by bulleted items of accomplishments and
challenges.
Damage Documentation
Documentation of damage to buildings in Lubbock following the 1970
tornado and the comprehensive report that was published was the first
step in Texas Tech's gaining recognition and credibility in damage
mitigation research. Damage documentation studies have continued in
most of the extreme wind events that have occurred since 1970. Over 130
documentations have been completed, and a large number of photographs
and reports have been archived. Information from the archive has been
used extensively in seminars, publications, and outreach to the
professional design community. The library of the late Dr. Ted Fujita,
noted scientist and researcher (originator of F-scale rating for
tornadoes) at the University of Chicago, was recently donated to Texas
Tech, further enriching this valuable resource.
Lessons Learned
Central portion of building is the safest
Opening windows is counterproductive (impacted NWS
instructions)
Low-rise buildings of wood, masonry, light metal fail
structurally
Cladding damage is common
Debris is abundant in urban areas
Costly business interruptions are common
Content damage is extensive
Challenges/Opportunities
Collection of statistical data
Archiving cost data on consistent basis
Aerial and satellite imagery documentation
Developing accessible user-friendly data retrieval
system
Storm Shelters (Safe Rooms)
Although the concept of the aboveground storm shelter emerged in
the 1970s, widespread utilization followed the 1998 publication and
distribution of FEMA Publication 320, Taking Shelter from the Storm--
Building a Safe Room Inside Your House. Soon to follow was FEMA
Publication 361, Design and Construction Guidance for Community
Shelters. Rapid growth of the shelter industry was stimulated by the
incentive grant program in Oklahoma following the Oklahoma City
tornadoes of 1999. Emerging quality issues in shelter construction led
to formation of the National Storm Shelter Association and development
of an industry standard (available at www.NSSA.cc). The International
Code Council is now developing a national consensus standard for storm
shelters. Completion is expected in 2005.
Accomplishments
Developed designs with conservative wind loads
Bridged gap between research and implementation
Designed and built state-of-the-art debris impact
facility
Provided design input to FEMA 320 and 361
publications
Challenges/Opportunities
Optimize site-specific designs for economy
Foster quality in shelter construction - standards
and codes
Reduce hurricane evacuation with in-home shelters
Change mindset of public for shelters
Define incentives to build shelters in existing and
new buildings
Establish programs to fund shelter construction for
low income people
Wind Effects
The windy environment in the Lubbock area has permitted us to
establish the Wind Engineering Research Field Laboratory (WERFL). A
full-size building and a meteorological tower permit measurement of
wind pressure data in natural winds. The WERFL facility was an impetus
to the pursuit of a cooperative program (funded by NSF) with Colorado
State University, which tested the same building in their wind tunnel
to improve testing technology.
Innovative testing in the field using a C-130 Hercules aircraft
permitted testing of full-size buildings in controlled high winds (gust
up to 100 mph). Testing of real buildings to failure in fluctuating
winds (not yet tested) will allow us to understand component
resistances and progressive failure modes. This understanding leads to
credible wind loss models.
Accomplishments
Developed unique WERFL for wind effects
Measured pressures from natural wind on a building
Pursued cooperative NSF-funded program with CSU
Assisted in improving wind tunnel technology
Tested full-scale building with C-130 prop wash
Challenges/Opportunities
Make WERFL accessible to researchers worldwide
Develop facility to test full-size buildings to
failure
Build testing facilities for frame and component
resistances
Improve wind tunnel technology for component testing
Standards and Codes
Accredited standards provide a foundation for building codes that
establish expectations of quality in the constructed environment.
Accurate data is fundamental to establishing reliable standards,
forming the basis for codes and ultimately the design of buildings.
Consistency of codes, and hence the consolidation of model codes, is
important to the design of safe economical buildings. Guidelines based
on research permit professionals to design for situations that are
beyond codes.
Accomplishments
ASCE 7 Standard is based on physics and scientific
data
One wind load standard is developed for the country
Model codes are consolidated into one model code
Statewide building codes are being developed
ICC/NSSA Standard for storm shelters is being
assembled
Safe areas in school guidelines have been developed
Challenges/Opportunities
Calibrate prescriptive standards and codes
Develop performance-based standards
Develop risk management approach
Develop cost-benefit models for mitigation measures
Wind Characteristics
Knowledge of near-ground wind field in severe winds (hurricanes,
thunderstorms, and tornadoes) and pressures and forces they impart on
building components are essential to the design of safe economical
buildings. The purpose of this knowledge is to simulate correct wind
characteristics in wind tunnels. Current simulations of wind in wind
tunnels do not reflect rapidly changing wind speeds in thunderstorms,
downdrafts, or tornadoes or, to some extent, in hurricanes. Field
measurements of wind in these storms, using stationary and protable
towers, provide the necessary input to wind tunnels and, for the
future, to computational fluid dynamics technology.
Accomplishments
Measured ground-level wind characteristics in land-
falling hurricanes
Measured time and space correlation of winds in
thunderstorms outflow
Developed (preliminary) laboratory tornado simulator
Performed initial experiments for downdraft effects
on building
Challenges/Opportunities
Develop credible laboratory model of tornado
Establish wind characteristic criteria for
thunderstorm, tornado, and hurricane storms
Develop wind tunnel that can simulate rapidly
changing winds
Technology Transfer/Education
Research results become useful and valuable when they are
implemented to improve the built environment or when they are used to
influence human behavior and policy decisions. Information and outreach
programs help to transfer technology to professionals and the public at
large. We are only beginning to educate college and K-12 students to
understand the perils of the wind hazard. The windstorm poses complex
problems, and an interdisciplinary approach to approach to develop
mitigation strategies and their implementation is needed.
Accomplishments
ASCE continuing education courses are presented
Seminars for professionals are presented
Preview model for HAZUS (FEMA) has been developed
A limited number of university graduates are being
produced
Challenges/Opportunities
Provide information for public, emergency personnel,
and decision makers
Produce graduates and professionals versed in
windstorm disasters
Complete FEMA/HAZUS model for the wind hazard
Develop and Implement Interdisciplinary educational
program
Reports Cited
American Association for Wind Engineering. (2004). ``Wind Engineering
Research and Outreach Plan to Reduce Losses Due to Wind Hazards
(Hurricanes, Tornadoes, and Thunderstorms).'' Draft, January
12.
Meade, C. and Abbott, M. (2003). ``Assessing Federal Research and
Development for Hazard Loss Reduction.'' RAND, Arlington, VA.
National Research Council. (1991). ``A Safer Future: Reducing the
Impacts of Natural Disasters.'' National Academy Press,
Washington, D.C.
National Research Council. (1993). ``Wind and the Built Environment:
U.S. Needs in Wind Engineering and Hazard Mitigation.''
National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.
National Research Council. (1994). ``Facing the Challenge: The U.S.
National Report to the IDNDR World Conference on Natural
Disaster Reduction.'' National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.
National Research Council. (1999). ``The Impacts of Natural Disasters:
A Framework for Loss Estimation.'' National Academy Press,
Washington, D.C.
Biography for Ernst W. Kiesling
Professor of Civil Engineering, Texas Tech University; Executive
Director, National Storm Shelter Association
Dr. Kiesling has 40 years of teaching, research, administration and
public service in his career at Texas Tech University. He served as
Chairman of the Civil Engineering Department for 20 years and as
Associate Dean of Engineering for Research for five years. He has been
engaged in full-time teaching and research for the past 10 years. He
leads the storm shelter research effort within the Wind Science and
Engineering Research Center at Texas Tech.
Dr. Kiesling and his colleagues developed the In-Residence storm
shelter, an above-ground shelter capable of providing a very high
degree of protection from extreme winds. Texas Tech provided shelter
designs and other input to FEMA publications on storm shelters.
He was instrumental in founding the National Storm Shelter
Association (NSSA), a non-profit trade association dedicated to quality
in the shelter industry. He currently serves as Executive Director of
the Association.
Mr. Neugebauer. Thank you.
Dr. Meade.
STATEMENT OF DR. CHARLES MEADE, SENIOR PHYSICAL SCIENTIST, RAND
CORPORATION
Dr. Meade. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to be here
today to discuss the research and findings from the recent RAND
report, ``Assessing Federal Research and Development for Hazard
Loss Reduction.'' This work, as you note, was carried out at
the request of the White House Office of Science and Technology
Policy to help formulate a better understanding of the role of
our government-sponsored R&D in the Nation's efforts to reduce
hazard losses and so it is topical to today's hearing.
Quickly, the principal findings of our studies were
considering the entire R&D portfolio that contributes to hazard
loss reduction. Explicit hazard loss reduction programs, such
as the one you are considering today, are absolutely the
smallest component of the federal R&D portfolio. Secondly, the
largest fraction of R&D spending supports work on weather
hazards and broadly related research on climatology,
atmospheric science, and oceanography. And thirdly, much of the
R&D spending supports short-term prediction capabilities,
specifically largely in the area of weather forecasting.
With this background, my following remarks will address the
community's questions for this hearing, starting with number
one: Is the United States growing more or less vulnerable to
damage from wind hazards and why? The U.S. is growing more
vulnerable to wind hazards because of two trends. First,
increasing development near the Atlantic and Gulf coast has
created large populations and infrastructures that are
increasingly vulnerable to hurricane. Data on insured losses
from the insurance industry provide a stark measure of this
increasing vulnerability. The average annual loss from
hurricanes from 1944 to 1988 was $1.1 billion per year. That is
insured losses. From 1988 to 1999 this value rose to four times
that level, to an average of roughly $4.2 billion per year.
The second component that is increasing the vulnerability
is associated with the increasing prevalence of manufactured
homes in the central part of the United States, where we are
today, which is susceptible to tornadoes.
Because these structures have only minimal wind resistance
and no basements, the injury rate is estimated to be 20 times
higher than that for conventional homes during high winds.
The most important feature for both of these
vulnerabilities is that they could be reduced through
appropriate R&D efforts such as you're considering today.
For example, a better understanding of hurricane wind
fields after landfall or improved design and engineering of
manufactured homes so they are also more resistant to wind
hazards.
For the second question you ask: Approximately how much
money is the Federal Government going to spend per year on wind
hazard mitigation research and development? Answers to this
question depend on analysis of two subsidiary questions, both
of which were considered in detail in the RAND study.
Specifically, what is the definition of government research and
development spending and what are the characteristics of R&D
for wind hazard mitigation.
On the first issue we utilized RAND's RaDiUS database which
details R&D spending across the Federal Government as defined
and classified by the OMB. So we used the OMB definition for
R&D dollars.
In the second issue we examined all federally-funded R&D
applied to natural hazards and they considered contributions
explicitly to wind hazard loss reduction. Considering the
purposes of this hearing, they differentiated R&D expenditures
that support improved engineering designs of structures and
those that are focused largely on meteorological applications
and weather forecasting. With this framework, R&D expenditures
addressed to infrastructure losses were approximately $11
million in FY 2001. By comparison, expenditures for
meteorological R&D in weather forecasting were almost 70 times
larger, at roughly $755 million.
Considering those loss mitigations, this allegation is
problematic because the short-term view of forecasts made only
limited contributions to loss reduction. Specifically,
forecasts are surely very valuable for evacuations and saving
lives, but they do very little to limit the destruction of
property in the long-term and larger sense, and losses that
occurred during wind hazards.
To address this discrepancy, we restate here and now the
policy recommendations that were stated in our RAND report:
Number one, there was a need to increase focus. We weigh R&D
activities away from short-term prediction efforts and toward
the long-term loss reduction goals.
Number two, increase the focus on technologies and
information that will reduce infrastructure losses. And three,
establish a comprehensive national loss database that can be
used as a guidepost for R&D strategies. And four, utilize loss
modeling to identify essential R&D topics.
In fact, you may ask, how much damage do wind hazards do in
the United States each year? To that we respond, even though
wind hazards are detailed in the media and they trigger large
government relief efforts, we actually have only a limited
understanding of the actual loss levels and how they vary from
year to year.
Lack of accurate loss data can be traced to a number of
factors. First, most of the data on wind and hazard losses are
actually never collected or analyzed. Two, wind losses are
driven by the climate, which is extremely variable from year to
year. Three, in many cases it is difficult to identify unique
wind losses as opposed to say flood losses, which may occur at
the same time. Our vulnerability to wind losses is increasing,
as I discussed previously. And finally, there are ambiguities
in the way that wind and hazard losses are characterized from
an economic standpoint. We talked about that at lunch, as I
recall.
Considering the above factors, the current understanding of
wind losses has been derived from a range of sources with
widely varying analytic techniques and they really can only be
considered estimates rather than any kind of measurements.
And so with that background and using the data in our own
study, we would estimate that the value for wind related losses
currently in the United States is on the average of
approximately $7 billion per year. But I would emphasize that
that's a highly uncertain number and a central recommendation
of the RAND study was to emphasize the need to improve the
accuracy of these data to provide better guideposts for federal
R&D policy related to natural hazards.
With that I close and I appreciate the opportunity to be
here today.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Meade follows:]
Prepared Statement of Charles Meade
Mr. Chairman: I am pleased to be here to day to discuss the
research and findings from the recent RAND report ``Assessing Federal
Research and Development for Hazard Loss Reduction.'' This work was
carried out at the request of the Office of Science and Technology
Policy to help formulate a better understanding of the role of
government-sponsored R&D in the Nation's efforts to reduce hazard
losses. For this task, RAND conducted an analysis of the full range of
federal R&D expenditures guided by the following questions:
What is the distribution of federal R&D funding
across various types of hazards?
What types of research activities are supported by
federal funding?
What criteria determine the allocation of these
funds?
How do these R&D efforts contribute to hazard loss
reduction?
With this approach we carried out an analysis to determine whether
there are holes or imbalances in the federal R&D portfolio and whether
key areas are being overlooked. We used the results of our analysis to
develop a policy framework that will help in future attempts to assess
the ``payoffs'' of various kinds of R&D, including which efforts offer
the greatest potential for reducing hazard losses. Finally, we
considered the larger issues about the demands placed on R&D to
``solve'' the problem of hazard losses. Ultimately, we offered
suggestions for new ways to frame expectations and demands for R&D in
addressing the problem of hazard losses.
The RAND study was motivated by the problem of rapidly growing
economic losses from natural hazards. While the United States has
experienced a decline in the numbers of lives lost due to earthquakes,
hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, and droughts, over the past few decades,
the associated costs of natural disasters escalated dramatically over
the same period. Between 1978 and 1989, the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) paid out about $7 billion in disaster relief
funds. In the next dozen years, however, payouts increased almost
fivefold, to over $39 billion.
The primary cause for the rise appears to be growing population in
vulnerable areas. Demographic changes, most dramatically, the mass
human migration to coastal and other high-risk areas, have made
disasters increasingly costly events. At the same time, increasing
concentrations of people and property have escalated the complexity of
the Nation's infrastructure--public utilities, critical facilities,
transportation systems, communications networks, and the built
environment. As the density of the infrastructure increases,
particularly in urban areas, the potential losses from natural hazards
become greater still.
Because of the heavy financial burden imposed by losses across all
sectors of the economy, pressure on the Federal Government to act
quickly and effectively to ``solve'' the problem has been growing. With
this motivation, the federal strategy to address the hazard loss
problem takes many forms, from providing disaster relief to assisting
in the regulation of private insurance to encouraging mitigation
efforts through various incentives. A key weapon in the Federal
Government's arsenal is its support of research and development (R&D).
Specifically, it funds work carried out by the research community to
improve understanding of, preparation for, and response to hazards and
their impacts.
To answer the questions posed by OSTP, we needed a clear view of
hazard loss reduction efforts in the federal R&D portfolio. We
therefore conducted an analysis of the federal R&D portfolio for a
particular year, FY 2001. Our objective was to identify R&D
expenditures that support the goals of reducing losses from natural
hazards such as floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, and wildfires. Because
the federal budget does not have a separate R&D budget, much less one
focused solely on hazard loss, we had to develop a set of detailed
criteria to identify hazard loss R&D activities within larger research
programs across the Federal Government.
Our data sources were RAND's RaDiUS database and other sources of
federal budget information. (RaDiUS stands for research and development
in the United States and it includes all federally funded R&D
expenditures.) The RaDiUS database details all federal R&D funding as
determined by computer records from the Office of Management and Budget
(OMB). We also looked at individual agency budget requests, as well as
annual R&D reports generated by the Office of the Federal Coordinator
for Meteorology, which encompasses the broad range of weather-related
federal programs.
Using these sources, we were able to analyze funding from a number
of perspectives, quantifying expenditures by agency, hazard type, and
program goals. Our key findings were as follows:
Explicit hazard loss reduction programs receive the
least funding. Programs dedicated solely to hazard loss
reduction R&D receive the smallest share of R&D funds. The
largest fraction goes to basic and applied research programs at
the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration (NASA). The second largest category is
operational support R&D, focused almost exclusively on weather-
related hazards.
The largest fraction of R&D spending supports work on
weather hazards and broadly related research on climatology,
atmospheric science, and oceanography. The second largest
category of R&D funding--a distant second--is research on
earthquakes. While losses from weather-related hazards are
estimated to be approximately twice as large as those from
earthquakes, the allocation of R&D funds between these
categories differs by more than a factor of 10.
Much of the R&D spending supports short-term
prediction capabilities. Closer examination of the funding for
weather-related hazard R&D shows that most of the effort is
focused on short-term prediction efforts, which have limited
loss reduction potential within the full range of losses from
natural hazards. Prediction can generally move individuals out
of harm's way, but R&D focused on long-term loss reduction
strategies could improve the resilience of communities and
infrastructure, protecting lives and property in a far more
substantial way.
This emphasis on weather-related hazards and prediction means that
other areas of hazard R&D receive comparatively less attention.
However, decisionmaking in this policy environment is difficult.
Despite its investments in hazard loss reduction R&D, the government
has yet to establish the essential framework that would enable these
efforts to operate efficiently and show their own merit. Developing a
more thoughtful strategy for funding allocation depends on the ability
to accurately determine the losses resulting from hazards and the
losses prevented or reduced by R&D efforts. In turn, it also depends on
the willingness of individuals and communities to implement measures
designed to reduce hazard losses. In other words, decisionmakers face
both quantitative and qualitative challenges in seeking to strengthen
the effectiveness of federal hazard loss R&D efforts.
First and foremost among these challenges is the lack of detailed
data on losses from natural hazards. (This quantitative gap has been
identified and examined in a number of previous policy studies.)
Without such data, it is impossible to gauge either the effectiveness
of new R&D strategies or their ultimate payoff in terms of losses
prevented. Detailed loss data would go a long way toward enabling a
more cost-effective distribution of R&D funds.
From a qualitative standpoint, perhaps the most daunting obstacle
policymakers face is human nature. Human behavior ultimately controls
the scale of disaster losses and thus exerts a major force on R&D
policy decisions for hazard loss reduction. While R&D provides useful
technical information, its effectiveness is determined by human
decisionmaking on issues such as whether to evacuate, where to locate
new construction, and whether to implement known mitigation measures in
existing communities.
With this background, my following remarks address the Committee's
questions for this hearing.
1) Is the United States growing more or less vulnerable to damage from
wind hazards, and why? What are some of the top opportunities for, and
primary barriers to, reducing these vulnerabilities?
The U.S. has grown more vulnerable to wind hazards because of two
trends.
First, increasing development near the Atlantic and Gulf coast has
created large populations and infrastructures that are vulnerable to
hurricanes. The impact of this development is clearly indicated in the
historical trend of insurance payouts for U.S. hurricane losses (see
Figure 1). Starting in the early 1980's, the data show increasing
losses with time, with an extremely large peak in 1992, associated with
Hurricane Andrew. Today, almost all hurricane warnings require huge
evacuations with attendant logistical problems and economic losses. In
1999, warnings for Hurricane Floyd resulted in the largest peacetime
evacuation in the United States as three million residents along the
Atlantic coast moved inland from Florida to North Carolina.
Data on insured hurricane losses, from the insurance industry,
provide a stark measure of the increasing vulnerability. From 1949 to
1999, catastrophic hurricanes in the United States caused direct
insured property losses totaling $37.9 billion--or an average of $743
million per year. To allow comparisons over long time periods, the
insurance industry adjusts these values accounting for inflation,
population growth, and changes in real tangible wealth. On this basis,
the average annual loss from 1944 to 1988 was $1.1 billion. From 1988
to 1999, the values were almost 4 times larger ($4.2 billion). A
portion of the increase was driven by the payouts from Hurricane
Andrew, which was the largest insured property loss from a natural
disaster in U.S. history. Even if one excludes the losses from Andrew,
the payouts are almost double the historical trends, suggesting that
the increased payouts reflect increasing vulnerability in addition to
any fluctuations in hurricane frequency.
The second trend is associated with the prevalence of manufactured
housing in the central part of the United States, which is susceptible
to tornadoes. Because these structures have only minimal wind
resistance, and no basements, the injury rate is extremely high for
occupants during high winds. Analyzing historical data, researchers at
the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration estimate that
the tornado death rate is approximately 20 times higher for residents
of manufactured housing compared to conventional structures. In the
Midwest, manufactured housing represents approximately 10 percent of
current construction.
The most important feature of these vulnerabilities is that they
could be reduced through appropriate R&D efforts. For example, better
understanding of hurricane wind fields after landfall could be used for
improved design and engineering of coastal structures. And experiments
and testing of manufactured housing could be used to design more
resilient homes.
2) Approximately how much money does the Federal Government spend per
year on wind hazard mitigation research and development? Where is this
effort currently focused (i.e., direct vs. indirect research,
engineering, economic, meteorological, etc.)? How could the federal
wind hazard research and development portfolio be refocused or
otherwise strengthened to improve mitigation in the United States?
Answers to these questions are contingent on the analysis of two
subsidiary issues, both of which were considered in detail in the RAND
study, Assessing Federal Research and Development for Hazard Loss
Reduction.
1) What is the definition of government ``research and
development'' spending?
2) What are the characteristics of R&D for ``wind hazard
mitigation''?
For the first issue, we utilized RAND's RaDiUS database which
details R&D spending across the Federal Government, as defined and
classified by the Office of Management and Budget. The OMB definition
for research and development is ``creative work undertaken on a
systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including
knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of
knowledge to devise new applications'' (OMB Circular A-11). Excluded
from this category are product testing, quality control, mapping, the
collection of general-purpose statistics, experimental production,
routine monitoring and evaluation of an operational program, and the
training of scientific and technical personnel. This definition,
however, is open to the interpretations of numerous individuals at a
wide range of government agencies. OMB permits individual agencies a
degree of liberty in determining which activities should be considered
R&D, allowing each agency to use its own long-standing definition of
R&D when reporting such activities to OMB. As a result, the activities
that the Department of Interior considers R&D may not be classified as
such by the National Science Foundation, whose definition of R&D
appears more tightly tied to basic laboratory science.
For the second issue, we examined all federally funded R&D applied
to natural hazards, and we considered the contributions to hazard loss
reduction. For FY 2001, this analysis found that approximately 90
percent of all R&D funds address weather-related hazards, which
includes wind, flooding, extreme temperatures, drought, and large
storms. Within this category, most of the funding supports short-term
forecasting efforts (e.g., weather prediction, hurricane tracking,
etc.).
Considering the goals of loss mitigation, this allocation is
problematic because short-term forecasts only make limited
contributions to loss reduction. Specifically, forecasts are most
useful for evacuations (thereby saving lives), but they do very little
to limit the destruction of property. Reducing these losses requires
longer-term efforts, involving improved engineering, design, and
planning for infrastructure construction.
Considering the purposes of this hearing, we differentiate R&D
expenditures that support improved engineering and design of structures
from those that are focused largely on meteorological applications and
weather forecasting (see table below). Activities in the first category
largely include wind engineering research, supported by the National
Science Foundation and the National Institute for Standards and
Technology. By comparison, the meteorological category encompasses a
huge range of basic and applied research on the nature of the global
climate system.
With this framework, R&D expenditures addressed to infrastructure
losses were $11,034,000 in FY 2001. By comparison, expenditures for
meteorological R&D were almost 70 times larger ($755 million).
The difference in funding between infrastructure and meteorological
R&D for wind hazards is consistent with one of the principal findings
from the RAND study applied to all R&D on natural hazards.
Specifically:
Much of the R&D spending supports short-term
prediction capabilities. Closer examination of the funding for
weather-related hazard R&D shows that most of the effort is
focused on short-term prediction efforts, which have limited
loss reduction potential within the full range of losses from
natural hazards. Prediction can generally move individuals out
of harm's way, but R&D focused on long-term loss reduction
strategies could improve the resilience of communities and
infrastructure, protecting lives and property in a far more
substantial way.
Because the policy recommendations from the RAND study
were directed to this problem, we restate them here as a
strategic framework for considering new R&D initiatives for
wind hazards. Specifically, the government needs to address
these issues to ensure that new R&D efforts make a meaningful
contribution to loss reduction for wind hazards.
Establish a comprehensive national loss database.
Data on hazard losses are central for a host of concerns,
including prioritizing R&D efforts, planning budgets for states
and localities, developing contingency operations, and
conducting cost-benefit analyses for specific measures that
will allow policymakers to see the relative value of various
R&D efforts and will help citizens to understand the value of
implementing long-term mitigation procedures.
Utilize loss modeling to identify essential R&D. Loss
modeling, which simulates the impacts of potential disasters,
can help determine which hazards generate the greatest
avoidable losses, the effects of mitigation steps on loss
totals, the time scale for losses, and the budget needs for
vulnerable regions to prepare for a prospective hazard. These
models hold great promise for prioritizing research needs by
weighing the costs and benefits of various mitigation measures
against the estimated losses from specific hazards.
Re-orient R&D activities toward longer-term loss
reduction efforts. A shift to longer-term, less prediction-
oriented efforts holds great potential for reducing losses. The
development of technologies to strengthen the built environment
can save lives, protect property, and dramatically reduce the
costs of rebuilding after a disaster.
Increase the focus on technologies and information
that will reduce infrastructure losses. Damage to
infrastructure--e.g., buildings, public roads and highways,
bridges, water and sewer treatment plants, and emergency
services--results in casualties as well as extensive economic
losses. The development of improved technologies and
information systems can help limit such losses. For instance,
greater R&D focus on funding for communications and remote
sensing capabilities, geographic information and global
positioning systems (GPSs), and modeling and simulation
techniques should lead to considerable damage reduction.
3) According to National Weather Service estimates, how much damage do
wind hazards cause in the United States each year? How are these
numbers compiled?
Each year, the United States suffers significant losses from wind
hazards. In the spring, tornadoes wreak havoc in the Midwest. In the
summer and fall, hurricanes come ashore, damaging coastal and inland
communities. In the case of Isabel in September 2003, this included
massive blackouts in cities hundreds of miles from the point of
landfall.
Even though these events are detailed in the media, and they
trigger large government relief efforts, we have only a limited
understanding of the actual loss levels and how they vary with time. In
this respect the problem of quantifying wind losses is a component of
the larger challenge of quantifying losses from all natural hazards
The lack of accurate loss data and the implications for public
policy have been noted in a number of recent studies from the National
Academy of Sciences, the Heinz Center for Environment and Public
Policy, and RAND. The origin of the problem can be traced to a number
of factors:
Most of the data on wind and hazard losses are never
collected or analyzed.
The largest collection of data on wind losses is maintained
by the Property Claims Service (PCS), which tracks insurance
industry payouts to policyholders following a disaster. While
this is a valuable resource for understanding insurance
industry losses, it is certainly not a complete picture of wind
losses in the United States. Moreover, the database is only
available to professionals in the insurance industry.
Additional unmeasured components of wind losses occur in the
following categories:
Federal: A number of agencies provide disaster relief,
but there is no centralized recording of these
expenditures.
Private charities: Organizations such as the Red Cross
provide vital relief services, using donated and
internal resources.
State and municipal governments: These governments
incur disaster losses in a number of forms, including
relief payouts, overtime for emergency workers, and
damage to municipal facilities.
Individuals and private companies: These entities
suffer losses which are unmeasured and uncompensated by
the above sources.
Wind losses are driven by the climate, which is
extremely variable from year to year.
As a result, the level of wind losses can vary tremendously
from year to year. However, the origins of the variability are
complex. Part of the problem is driven by inter-annual climate
fluctuations, which produce large variations in the number of
windstorms. For example, over the past 90 years, the annual
number of hurricanes making landfall on the United States has
ranged from 8 to 0. By comparison, the annual number of
reported tornadoes has ranged from approximately 500 to 1500
over the past 50 years. However, these changes only explain
part of the loss variations, because the loss levels are also
driven by event magnitudes and locations, which are
uncorrelated with the number of storms in a given year.
Hurricane Andrew emphasized this problem in 1992. The hurricane
resulted in the largest insurance payments for any natural
disaster in the United States ($15.5 billion), yet it occurred
in a year with only an average number of storms.
In many cases, it is difficult to identify unique
``wind'' losses.
Except for tornadoes, most wind hazards are accompanied by
large amounts of precipitation (rain, snow, hail), which
complicates the process of determining causes of the resulting
damage. For example, wind may blow a tree over, but only
because rain has softened the ground. Hurricanes are usually
accompanied by large amounts of flooding and water damage. And
hail may be especially damaging because it hits objects with
high wind velocities. Even the detailed Property Claims Service
loss database does not distinguish the different origins for
these wind-related losses.
Our vulnerability to wind hazards is increasing.
As a result, trends in wind losses are strongly influenced
by societal decisions regarding the design and location for new
infrastructure. These issues are discussed in greater in
response to Question 1.
There are ambiguities in the way that wind and hazard
losses are characterized.
While losses are usually reported as an aggregate number, it
is important to distinguish the types of losses in an economic
context. At the top level, the most important distinctions are
between ``direct'' and ``indirect'' losses. The first category
refers to losses that are directly associated with the damage
(e.g., a house that is destroyed by a tornado), while the
second involves the secondary effects of a disaster (e.g.,
someone looses his job because the disaster impacted his
employer). From a measurement standpoint, the direct losses are
much easier to quantify, and they only occur around the time of
disaster. In contrast, indirect losses are somewhat subjective,
and they are spread out in time, as the impacts of a disaster
ripples through the economy. Although they are rarely
discussed, benefits offset some of these losses (e.g., economic
benefits of rebuilding damaged infrastructure). Considering all
of these loss categories, the clearly are challenges to making
an accurate and complete measurement of the losses for a
particular hazard.
Considering the above factors, the current understanding of wind
losses has been derived from a range of sources, with widely varying
analytic techniques. As such, the results of this work are presented as
estimates, rather than measurements of hazard losses. At this level of
detail, the estimates cannot be used to assess the effectiveness of
different R&D strategies. However, they do provide a top-level
description of the loss magnitudes and the variation among different
types of hazards. With this background, the estimated annualized losses
for wind related hazards, from a variety of sources, are presented in
the following table.
A central recommendation of the RAND study emphasized the need to
improve the accuracy of these data to provide better guideposts for
federal R&D policy related to natural hazards.
I appreciate the opportunity to be here today.
This product is part of the RAND Corporation testimony series. RAND
testimonies record testimony presented by RAND associates to federal,
State, or local legislative committees; government-appointed
commissions and panels; and private review and oversight bodies. The
RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization providing
objective analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges
facing the public and private sectors around the world. RAND's
publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research
clients and sponsors.
Biography for Charles Meade
Charles Meade, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist with the RAND
Corporation. His research focuses on risk management for catastrophic
threats such as, natural disasters, terrorism and nuclear
proliferation. For the White House Office of Science and Technology
Policy, Dr. Meade carried out a comprehensive analysis of R&D focused
on natural disasters, and he recently led a terrorism risk reduction
study for the largest worldwide banking consortium. In the past 18
months, Dr. Meade's research contributed to the work of the high-level
Gilmore Commission, the National Response Plan promulgated by the
Secretary of Homeland Security, and the White House review of critical
infrastructure protection strategies. Previously, he led a large study
for General Shalikashvili on U.S. efforts to reduce threats from
nuclear proliferation. He also performed a comprehensive analysis of
seismic mitigation strategies for all California hospitals, as mandated
by state seismic safety laws. From 1995 to 1997, Dr. Meade served at
the National Research Council of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences
where he directed policy studies in the Earth Sciences. From 1990-1995,
he was a scientist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington where he
led a research program in experimental geophysics. Dr. Meade is the
author of 42 peer-reviewed research publications, nine policy studies
published by the National Academy of Sciences, an edited book on the
Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and a syndicated op-ed on
warnings for terrorist threats. He received a Ph.D. in Geology (1990)
and a B.S. in Political Economy (1983) from the University of
California, Berkeley.
Mr. Neugebauer. Thank you, Dr. Meade.
Dr. Bienkiewicz.
STATEMENT OF DR. BOGUSZ BIENKIEWICZ, PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF
CIVIL ENGINEERING, COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY
Dr. Bienkiewicz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I very much
appreciate the opportunity to be in front of this committee. My
testimony covers the following topics: First, a brief overview
of research carried out at Colorado State University. Second, a
brief discussion of windstorm damage in the United States. And
third, discussion of a proposal for the establishment of a
National Wind Hazards Reduction Program. These topics are
addressed in some detail in my written testimony and more
details I have provided with the report I have attached with
the testimony. I present brief highlights of some of the
topics.
First, I will present a brief overview of wind engineering
research at Wind Engineering and Fluids Laboratory at Colorado
State University. For over 40 years this laboratory has been
the center of excellence for fundamental and applied research
in wind engineering and fluid dynamics. The core of this
laboratory is three large boundary-layer wind tunnels that
allow for realistic modeling of atmospheric boundary layer
flows. One of the early long-term research programs carried out
in our laboratories in the 60's was modeling and assessment of
dispersion of chemical agents released from various sources
under various atmospheric conditions. Post-9/11 concerns
regarding potential intentional release of chemical,
biological, or radiological agents in urban, suburban, and
rural settings led to renewed interest in any capabilities
existing in our laboratory.
A significant number of investigations carried out at our
laboratory addressed wind effects on buildings and structures
and mitigation measures to minimize these effects. Wind
engineering studies included landmark buildings such as World
Trade Center, Sears Tower, and support facilities for Space
Shuttle Operation Center at Cape Canaveral. Also we looked at
other structures, including long-span bridges, roofs, slender
towers, stacks and others. In addition, research included
environmental assessment of sitings of fossil and nuclear power
plants and renewable energy installations. Determination and
mitigation of wind effects on low-rise buildings and building
components has been the main thrust of R&D carried out at our
laboratory in recent years. In 1990 a majority of these
activities were carried out within the framework of the
Cooperative Program in Wind Engineering involving faculty and
students from Texas Tech and from Colorado State University.
Now we turn our attention to the issue of the impact of
windstorm hazards in the United States. Hurricanes, tornadoes,
thunderstorms, and associated phenomena cause an excessive
level of property losses and human suffering in the United
States. The average annual financial loss due to this, however,
is difficult to state with precision, but it exceeds $6
billion. A single large hurricane could cause losses far in
excess of the $25 billion attributed to Hurricane Andrew in
1992.
As the result of public and private efforts a number of
wind hazard mitigation measures have been developed over the
years and put into practice in coastal areas and in other
regions. These measures led to significant reduction in
fatalities attributed to wind hazards; however, they did not
result in reversing a lot of material and business losses and
ultimately, therefore, it is needed to address this issue.
These issues are discussed in more detail in my testimony
and in the attached report. Arguments presented by the
documents show that a coordinated, comprehensive, and long-term
effort would be necessary to achieve significant reduction in
property damage due to wind hazards in the U.S. within the next
10 to 20 years. It is proposed that such an effort be
undertaken within the framework of a federal program, the Wind
Hazards Reduction Program.
The proposed concept of the National Wind Hazards Reduction
Program builds on lessons learned from the 25-year experience
with the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program. The
research and outreach plan proposed for this program is an
adaptation of the recently revised plan developed for NEHRP.
This program consists of four components. The first
component is focused on improved understanding of wind hazards.
The second component addresses issues of assessment of impact
of wind hazards. The focus of the third component is reduction
of impact of wind hazards. The fourth and final component
addresses issues of enhanced community resilience, education,
and outreach. Efforts specified for each component consist of
research and outreach tasks. A detailed list of these tasks is
provided in the testimony and more details can be found in the
report.
Recent revolutionary developments in information technology
have the potential to reach to unprecedented breakthroughs in
our effort to reduce property losses and human suffering due to
wind hazards.
In closing I would like to offer the following remarks:
First, reduction of wind-induced property losses and human
suffering will require a well-planned and coordinated
comprehensive action. The existing wind engineering and wind
hazard mitigation infrastructure and human resources provide a
critical must for starter activities of such undertaking. The
proposed wind hazards reduction program provides a frame of
implementation for wind hazard reduction needed within the
United States. Establishment of such a program would require
long-term commitment by the Federal Government. And finally,
delaying implementation of such a program, and a delay in
adjustment in federal support for wind engineering and
disciplines related to wind hazard mitigation, will further
impair this nation's ability to defuse the devastating impacts
of wind hazards. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Bienkiewicz follows:]
Prepared Statement of Bogusz (Bo) Bienkiewicz
Introduction
I very much appreciate the opportunity to appear before this
committee and to testify in this hearing. In this testimony I will
first present a brief overview of research activities carried out at
the Wind Engineering and Fluids Laboratory at Colorado State
University. Next, I will address issues associated with wind damage and
damage mitigation in the United States, including a brief assessment of
vulnerability to wind hazards and opportunities to reduce these
vulnerabilities. Finally I will discuss a potential for strengthening
the federal wind hazards research and development in the United States
through establishment of the National Wind Hazards Reduction Program.
These topics are discussed in more detail in a report entitled ``Wind
Engineering Research and Outreach Plan to Reduce Losses due to Wind
Hazards'' \1\ prepared by American Association for Wind Engineering in
collaboration with American Society of Civil Engineers. (This report
appears in Appendix 1: Additional Material for the Record.)
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\1\ ``Wind Engineering Research and Outreach Plan to Reduce Losses
Due to Wind Hazards,'' Report by American Association for Wind
Engineering, in collaboration with American Society of Civil Engineers,
February 2004, 37 pp.
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Wind Engineering Research at Wind Engineering and Fluids Laboratory
For over 40 years, the Wind Engineering and Fluids Laboratory
(WEFL), formerly the Fluid Dynamics and Diffusion Laboratory
(www.windlab.colostate.edu) has been the center of excellence for
fundamental and applied research in wind engineering and fluid
dynamics. It is one of the international laboratories where the
foundations of wind engineering were established. The core of WEFL are
three large boundary-layer wind tunnels that allow for realistic
modeling of the atmospheric boundary layer. This laboratory was
originally established to perform fundamental research on the structure
of turbulent boundary layer flows and to develop experimental
techniques for modeling atmospheric boundary layers under various flow
conditions and thermal stratifications. One of the early long-term
research programs carried out at WEFL (in 1960-ties) was modeling and
assessment of dispersion of chemical agents released from various
sources, under varied atmospheric conditions. Post 9/11 concerns
regarding potential intentional release of chemical/biological/
radiological agent(s) in urban/suburban/rural settings, as addressed in
a report recently released by the National Research Council,\2\ led to
renewed interest by various federal/state and other public entities in
the unique physical modeling capabilities existing at WEFL.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ ``Tracking and Predicting the Atmospheric Dispersion of
Hazardous Materials. Implications for Homeland Security,'' National
Research Council Report, ISBN 0-309-08926-3, National Academy Press,
Washington, D.C., 2003, 93 pp.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Over the years a great variety of studies of flows and their
interaction with natural and built environment have been carried out at
WEFL. A significant number of investigations addressed wind effects on
buildings and structures and mitigation measures to minimize these
effects. Wind engineering studies of a number of landmark buildings
designed and subsequently built in the United States were carried out
at WEFL. They included the New York's World Trade Center Towers,
Chicago's Sears Tower and other tall buildings built in the United
States. In addition, wind engineering studies were carried out to
determine wind loading on and aerodynamic response of other structures
(including long-span bridges and roofs, slender towers and stacks) and
environmental assessments for sitting of fossil fuel and nuclear power
plants as well as evaluation of sitting and performance of renewable
energy (solar and wind power) installations. Determination and
mitigation of wind effects on low-rise buildings and building
components and systems (including innovative roofing systems) have been
the main thrust of R&D carried out at WEFL in recent years.
A representative example of an involvement of WEFL in a coordinated
effort focused on reducing vulnerability of built environment to wind
hazards is participation of WEFL in a Cooperative Program in Wind
Engineering (CPWE) involving researchers and students from Colorado
State University (CSU) and Texas Tech University (TTU). This 10-year
program supported by the National Science Foundation consisted of a
number of research tasks that were addressed by collaborative teams
comprising of researchers and students (graduate and undergraduate)
from the two institutions. The CPWE teams made significant research,
education and outreach contributions in the area of better
understanding of wind hazards, their impact on low-rise buildings and
structures, and mitigation of these hazards. It should be noted that
one of the outcomes of the CPWE research is the design wind speed map
incorporated in the ASCE 7 Standard.\3\ Other major accomplishments of
this program included: development of refined physical modeling
techniques for wind engineering studies of low-rise buildings and
structures, formulation of hybrid (incorporating analytical, numerical
and experimental components) models for innovative (permeable, loose-
laid) roofing systems, development of numerical simulation and
visualization tools, and others. The outcomes of the CPWE effort have
been subsequently utilized in applied research and in wind engineering
service carried out at WEFL, TTU and at other institutions and private
industry. A representative example of transfer of technology advanced
through the CPWE at WEFL is application of the developed tools to
predict and mitigate undesired wind effects on innovative roofing
systems (including systems incorporating photovoltaic solar panels) and
other roofing products developed by U.S. roofing manufacturers and
solar energy providers. At TTU, various initiatives were undertaken to
expand wind hazards research and enhance technology transfer through
effective outreach activities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ ASCE 7 Standard, ``Minimum Design Loads for Buildings and Other
Structures,'' American Society of Civil Engineers, 2002, 330 pp.
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Impact of Windstorm Hazards in the United States
Wind-related events inflict major loss of life and material losses
in the United States. According to a report published by RAND\4\ (RAND
Report), the annualized material losses attributed to wind hazards
(inclusive of hurricanes, tornadoes and winter storms) are estimated to
be $6.3 billion. They exceed by over 40 percent and 60 percent losses
attributed respectively to earthquakes and floods. As the authors of
the RAND report point out, attempts to provide the hazard loss data
(and this applies to any natural hazard) face a number of challenges.
They include the variability in occurrence times and magnitude of
events resulting in measurable losses, the length of the averaging
period used in calculating the annualized losses, and other factors.
Calculation of the annualized losses is further complicated by lack of
national database of the losses and changing society's vulnerability to
wind and other hazards.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Meade, C. and Abbott, M., ``Assessing Federal Research and
Development for Hazard Loss Reduction,'' RAND Report, 2003, 65 pp.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The above wind damage statistics are dominated by hurricane events
of large magnitude. For example, in 1992 Hurricane Andrew resulted in
$26.5 billion--the highest level of direct and indirect economic losses
ever sustained in the United States as the result of a natural hazard
event. Analysis of material damage due to landfall of hurricanes in the
south-eastern United States over the period 1925-1995 showed that the
overall damage due to the reported 244 hurricanes and significant
tropical storms exceeded $340 billion, with most of the damage
attributed to a relatively small number of strong hurricanes--of
category 3 and higher on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.\5\
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\5\ Willoughby, H.E., ``A Century of Progress in Tracking and
Warning--Improvements in Observations, Models, and Forecasts,'' in
Hurricane! Coping with Disaster, Simpson, R. (Editor), American
Geophysical Union, 2003, pp. 205-216.
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The highest level of property damage and loss of life has been
attributed in the United States to hurricanes, tropical storms,
tornadoes and thunderstorms. While devastating effects of landfall of
hurricanes have been primarily limited to the Atlantic and Gulf coast
regions and the United States territories, hazards due to tornadoes and
thunderstorms are of concern to inhabitants of most of the Nation. The
highest numbers of fatalities and injuries are attributed to tornadoes.
Although most of the largest tornadoes occur in the central United
States--the tornado alley--tornadoes have been reported both west and
east of the alley. Tornado touchdowns in Maryland, Utah and other
states are good illustration of a wide territorial reach of destructive
tornadoes. Thousands of thunderstorms occur every year all over the
United States. Strong winds associated with passage of thunderstorms
(at times accompanied by tornadoes, gust fronts and downbursts) result
in a significant physical damage and human suffering. Local topographic
features may lead to amplification of such winds, thus compounding
adverse wind effects. Mountain ranges may lead to generation of local
strong winds, such as down slope Chinook wind in Rocky Mountains, Santa
Anna wind in California and strong winds in the northwestern U.S. and
in Alaska.
Overall (approximate) measure of the potential wind hazard is
represented by wind speed maps. Wind provisions of design codes and
standards, such as the American Society of Civil Engineers Standard
ASCE 7,3 provide the recommended design wind speed maps.
They typically include disclaimers /restrictions to account for
uncertainties/lack of reliable wind speed data.
Storm surge and heavy precipitation accompanying hurricanes both
contribute to overall damage and have a potential for causing loss of
life and various long-term undesired consequences. Precipitation
associated with thunderstorms and tornadoes may lead to severe flash
flooding. Other undesired effects associated with high-wind events
include disruptions in transportation during winter storms (due to
whiteouts and/or snowdrifts), summer dust storms and hail storms, and
adverse wind effects on fires.
As a result of ongoing public and private efforts a number of wind
hazards mitigation measures have been developed and put in practice in
coastal and other regions of the United States. These measures have led
to significant reduction in fatalities attributed to wind hazards,
mainly due to improved warning times and life protection systems
(shelters) in tornado prone regions, and improved forecasting of
hurricane landfall and more effective evacuation measures in the
Atlantic and Gulf coast areas of the United States.
While the available statistics on human losses due to wind hazards
show an encouraging trend of reduction of loss of life, the data on the
property losses due to wind hazards exhibit an opposite trend--
increasing annualized losses--with alarmingly increasing rate of change
in the losses, especially over the past decade. An intensified
coordinated effort to reduce these losses is desirable.
Barriers to Reducing Vulnerability to Wind Hazards
In discussion of the material costs of natural disasters, the
authors of the RAND Report noted a significant increase (reported by
GAO, in 2002) in the disaster relief funds allocated by FEMA: from $7
billion over the period of 1978-89 to $39 billion over the next twelve-
year period.
The authors identified a growing (indeed ``exploding'') population
in areas vulnerable to natural hazards (such as coastal areas) as one
of primary reasons for such a dramatic increase in damage and the
associated relief funds. A significant portion of these funds has been
used to offset material losses due to wind hazards. It has been
postulated that the above demographic trend will continue and that
significant measures need to be urgently undertaken in order to address
the issue of the increasing material losses (and associated relief
funds) due to wind hazards.
A number of factors impeding mitigation of damage due to wind and
other natural hazards have been identified by natural hazards
mitigation community comprising of researchers and practitioners of
broad background, decision and policy makers, and others. The domain of
their evaluation included research and development, technology transfer
and implementation, as well as outreach and education. Some of the
impediments to effective mitigation of losses due to natural (including
wind) hazards were postulated to be coupled with federal funding
policies. The authors of the RAND Report concluded that in a number of
programs explicit hazard loss reduction activities received the least
R&D funding, while much of the spending supported short-term prediction
capabilities of limited potential to long-term loss reduction that
could improve the resilience of communities and infrastructure, and
ultimately result in substantial reduction of losses. A large disparity
between federal R&D funding allocated for different natural hazards
also was noted.
As was reported before the Committee of Science of the U.S. House
of Representatives (testimony by Dr. McCabe,\6\ during hearing on
October 11, 2001), the average annual overall federal investment in
research to mitigate impacts of wind hazards is estimated to be $ 5-10
million. It is instructive to compare this amount with FY 2001 funding
allocations for fundamental research by National Science Foundation:
Civil & Mechanical Systems--Wind--$2.6 million, Earthquakes--$20.8
million; Atmospheric Sciences: Wind+Flood+Drought--$183.8 million, RAND
Report, p. 23. It should be noted that the federal funding in excess of
$100 million per annum has been invested over the past two decades to
support activities geared towards reduction in earthquake losses,
through the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program. A comparison
of these funding levels with the quoted earlier estimate for the
annualized wind hazards losses suggests that a significant increase in
federal investment in activities geared towards reduction of losses due
to wind hazards is urgently needed, justified, and has considerable
potential for short- and long-term payoff.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ McCabe, S.L., Testimony on behalf of American Society of Civil
Engineers before the Subcommittee on Environment, Technology and
Standards, of the Science Committee, U.S. House of Representatives,
October 11, 2001.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wind Engineering/Wind Hazards Research Needs
A list of wind engineering research areas identified as critical
for reduction of wind-induced loses is provided in the report published
by American Association for Wind Engineering.\7\ It included:
Collection of wind speed data using robust instrumentation and state-
of-the art technology to map detailed structure of the wind,
topographic effects, and long-term climate effects; Simulation of
hurricanes and their wind fields and other extreme wind effects for
statistical analysis of wind, wind loads, and wind-induced response of
structures and their components; Modeling of wind-structure
interaction, including effects of integral wind loads on structural
systems, components and cladding, effectiveness of retrofitting
schemes, effects of structural fatigue and impact by wind-generated
missiles, design of cost effective tornado shelters and shelters for
hurricane zones to minimize evacuation; Study of internal load paths,
performance of structural systems, and effectiveness of connections
between structural components; Field monitoring of structures in
natural environment and large-scale tests in simulated loading
environment; Research in debris impact potential in windstorm and
development of impact resistant building components; Mapping of wind
climate in urban areas; Health monitoring and structural control
studies for mitigation of wind effects; Application of effective
numerical schemes using computational fluid dynamics to determine the
wind environment and wind loading on and response of buildings,
structures, transportation systems and other critical components of
civil engineering infrastructure, and to mitigate these effects;
Development of effective techniques for collection and rapid archiving
and dissemination of data acquired during post-disaster investigations;
Development of cost-effective retrofit techniques to enhance wind
resistance of existing structures; and Development and application of
reliable techniques for cost-benefit analysis of wind hazards
mitigation measures and other socio-economic evaluations.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ ``Wind Engineering: New Opportunities to Reduce Wind Hazard
Losses and Improve Quality of Life in the USA,'' American Association
for Wind Engineering Report, August 1997, 74 pp.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Opportunities to Reduce Vulnerability to Wind Hazards
The existing R&D infrastructure and expertise in wind engineering
and other disciplines pertinent to mitigation of wind hazards, recent
advances in information technology as well as lessons learned from
programs focused on mitigation of other natural hazards, especially
earthquakes, form the basis that provides unique opportunities to
enhance our efforts to reduce vulnerabilities to wind hazards.
The existing research infrastructure includes laboratory and field
facilities used to investigate wind characteristics and wind effects on
buildings and structures and their components. The main components of
the laboratory infrastructure are long-test-section wind tunnels that
allow for realistic modeling of boundary-layer winds and other flow
modeling facilities that have been employed in exploratory modeling of
other wind phenomena, including tornadoes, hurricanes and downburst
outflows. Academic institutions in the United States involved in
laboratory modeling of wind effects include: Colorado State University,
Texas Tech University, Clemson University, Iowa State University,
Louisiana State University and University of Notre Dame.
Over the years, extensive wind engineering field studies of wind
effects on low-rise buildings and wind hazards mitigation have been
carried out by researchers at Texas Tech University, at two sites in
Lubbock, TX. A field site to carry out wind engineering investigations
primarily focused on manufactured homes was established (and jointly
operated by the DOE's Idaho Environmental Engineering Laboratory and
University of Wyoming) 30 miles west of Laramie, WY.
Several universities have established programs to collect high
fidelity hurricane wind field information near ground, and wind loading
on building envelope and building performance during strong wind
events. A number of houses at various locations along Atlantic and Gulf
coasts have been instrumented or outfitted with wiring and brackets for
easy installation of instrumentation. These efforts have been carried
out by researchers from Clemson University, University of Florida at
Gainesville and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagn. Several wind
engineering research groups (Texas Tech University, Clemson University
and University of Florida at Gainesville) use mobile towers (typically
30 feet in height) strategically positioned on an expected path of
hurricanes or other high-wind events. These instrumented towers are
equipped with back-up power supply and they are capable of withstanding
wind speeds up to 200 mph. Recent upgrades of the towers included use
of wireless phone communication (successfully deployed for the first
time during landfall of Hurricane Isabel in 2003) to transmit the
acquired data to a central database in near-real time.
Another example of an innovative application of the emerging
sensors, data acquisition and transmission technology is a recent study
coordinated by researchers from University of Notre Dame who have been
supplementing traditional monitoring devices in measurement of wind-
induced response of tall buildings using the Global Positioning System
(GPS).
The above cases are only a representative sample of applications of
new technologies incoroporated in current R&D focused on mitigation of
wind hazards. The revolutionary role of information technology (IT) and
unmatched opportunities resulting from its application in efforts
geared to reduce vulnerability to natural disasters were discussed in
RAND Report. Specific applications of IT in monitoring and simulating
seismic hazards and structural response due to earthquakes, as well as
in remote data acquisition and interpretation coupled with rapid
communication and visualization to aid broad range of stakeholders
(ranging from R&D through decision-making and emergency personnel) were
discussed in EERI Report.\8\ The described applications (of IT) appear
to have a tremendous potential to aid tasks to reduce vulnerability to
wind hazards and to coordinate local and regional planning to prevent/
minimize wind-induced losses.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ ``Securing Society Against Catastrophic Earthquake Losses--A
Research and Outreach Plan in Earthquake Engineering,'' Earthquake
Engineering Research Institute Report, April 2003, 62 pp.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benefits of Coordinated Wind Hazards Mitigation Research
Reducing wind hazards risk is a long-term commitment that builds on
past experience and advances in our understanding of wind, wind-induced
loading on and response of structures, impact of wind-generated debris,
and effects of other natural phenomena associated with strong winds
(for example surge, hail). Advances in quantifying the physical nature
of strong winds, coupled with continuing improvements in engineering
methods, will result in significantly increased wind hazard safety, as
structures existing in critical wind zones are retrofitted, and new and
replacement structures and infrastructure systems are constructed.
Research on wind hazards can significantly reduce economic losses
resulting from future strong-wind events. Whereas several success
stories can be cited, there is a pressing need to continue such
research in the future, and at an increased rate.
Because our nation's livelihood is highly dependent on business
activity, a future wind event, even one with only a moderate damage
potential, can result in significant economic loss. In an extreme case,
the recurrence of a hurricane with the magnitude of hurricane Andrew,
with landfall passage over a metropolitan area (such as Miami, Florida)
would be devastating. Total loss associated with such event is
estimated to exceed $30 billion, with a significant portion of this
loss attributable to interruptions in business operations. The tragic
events of 9/11 in New York City underscore the severity of economic
impact of a major disruption in urban infrastructure and interruptions
in business activities.
If relevant and timely research coupled with effective technology
transfer can reduce the economic loss from a single future strong wind
event by even a very conservative 10 percent, the payoff on the
investment will be in the billions of dollars.
Proposal for Establishment of National Wind Hazards Reduction Program
(NWHRP)
In context of arguments put forth in this presentation and findings
advanced elsewhere (AAWE Reports,1x-87 RAND
Report,4 NRC Report,\9\ NIST Report\10\ ), and in view of
the current and anticipated future unacceptably high level of wind
damage it should be apparent that effective countermeasures are
urgently needed and can be developed to stem and reverse these
undesirable trends. Evidence has been also presented to support a
proposition that an integrated and coordinated long-term effort with
well defined, achievable and measurable goals in R&D, education and
outreach will be necessary to significantly reduce societal
vulnerability to wind hazards with 10-20 year time horizon. Such a goal
could be accomplished through establishment of the National Wind
Hazards Reduction Program (NWHRP). The establishment of such a program
was proposed in the past by Jones et al.\11\ and others (NRC
Report,9 NIST Report10 ).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ ``Wind and the Built Environment--U.S. Needs in Wind
Engineering and Hazard Mitigation,'' National Research Council Report,
ISBN 0-309-04449-9, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1993, 130
pp.
\10\ Marshall, R.D., Editor, ``Proceedings of Workshop on Research
Needs in Wind Engineering,'' Technical Report NISTIR 5597, Building and
Fire Research Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and
Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, 1995, 69 pp.
\11\ Jones, N.P., Reed, D.A., and Cermak, J.E., ``Wind Hazard
Reduction Program,'' Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering,
ASCE, 121 (1), 1995, pp. 41-46.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The concept and implementation of NWHRP program could be built on
lessons learned from the 25-year experience with the National
Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP). The starting point in
this process could be the revised concept of the NEHRP described in the
EERI Report.8 Adaptation of this model for the NWHRP is
presented in the AAWE Report.1 The main components of the
program are summarized in Table 1, while the research and outreach
tasks are listed in Table 2.
Implementation of the above concept is based on a sequential
progression from Component A through Component D. Significant number of
outreach tasks are planned to be activated at appropriate phases of
progress in research tasks of all the components of the program, as is
illustrated in Table 2.
In formulation of the NWHRP plan attempts were made to develop a
dynamic program that would allow for timely use of outcomes of ongoing
(in the United States and elsewhere) related research and outreach
efforts addressing mitigation of losses due to wind and other natural
hazards. A particular attention was given to activities in the area of
earthquake engineering, carried out within and beyond the framework of
NEHRP.
Potential Impact of Information Technology
Recent developments in information technology (sensors; data
collection, transfer, processing and visualization; experimental and
computational simulation; high-end computing; and adaptive networking)
have a potential to lead to unprecedented breakthroughs in our efforts
to reduce property losses and human suffering due to wind hazards.
These advances in information technology (IT) have already
significantly influenced activities addressing impacts of natural
hazards. Two representative examples of relevance to the NWHRP are
discussed below.
The first example is the Network for Earthquake Engineering
Simulation (NEES). Significant federal investment has been authorized
by Congress for the development of NEES--$82 million over the 2002-2004
period. This funding was allocated for construction/enhancement of
engineering laboratories at fifteen universities and development of an
advanced networked and grid-enabled experimental, data, and
computational infrastructure. This resource makes possible
implementation of a concept of ``colaboratory'' which enables
researchers to remotely interact with each other and with their
simulation and computational work via ``telepresence'' tools.
Application of these concepts and infrastructure appears to have a
great potential for breakthroughs in wind hazards research and
outreach. Modest investment to upgrade wind engineering experimental
(laboratory/field) and computational infrastructure, coupled with
shared use of the NEES networking capabilities would allow for an
efficient exploratory application of these technologies in the NWHRP
activities.
The second example is utilization of low-cost, small-size (3 ft 3
ft) networked radars that can be placed on existing cellular towers.
These short-range sensors can provide information on low-level winds
and other properties of the atmospheric surface layer. They are
currently being developed by one of the Engineering Research Centers
(supported by NSF) and they are scheduled to be tested in mid 2005, in
a networked configuration covering approximately 20 percent of the
State of Oklahoma. This technology appears to have potential for
application in mapping of wind hazards and in other activities of the
NWHRP.
Concluding Remarks
As discussed in this presentation, significant coordinated federal
effort will be required to reverse trend of increasing property losses
and human suffering due to wind hazards. The proposed research and
outreach plan represents a comprehensive approach to this problem.
Implementation of this plan through activities of the proposed NWHRP
promises to have a very high level of success in achieving significant
reduction in wind hazards impacts within the next decade.
Recent revolutionary developments in information technology
(including sensors, data collection, transfer, processing and
visualization, experimental and computational simulation, high-end
computing and networking infrastructure) have a potential to lead to
unprecedented breakthroughs in our efforts to reduce property losses
and human suffering due to wind hazards. Sizing the above opportunities
will require federal investment to upgrade the existing and develop new
research and outreach infrastructure and human resources.
Reduction in material losses and human suffering within the next
decade will not be possible without a significant and long-term federal
commitment. Moreover, delay in adjustment in federal support in these
areas will undoubtedly lead to further (and probably accelerated)
deterioration in currently existing national research and outreach
infrastructure and in human resources in wind engineering, wind hazards
mitigation and in related disciplines.
Biography for Bogusz Bienkiewicz
Dr. Bogusz (Bo) Bienkiewicz is a Professor of Civil Engineering and
Director of the Wind Engineering and Fluids Laboratory at Colorado
State University in Fort Collins, CO. He holds a Ph.D. in Civil
Engineering from Colorado State University. For over 25 years he has
been involved in wind engineering research at the Wind Engineering and
Fluids Laboratory and in teaching in the Department of Civil
Engineering at Colorado State University. His professional service and
outreach have included participation in various activities of the
American Association for Wind Engineering and in technical committees
of the American Society of Civil Engineers. He currently serves as
President of the American Association for Wind Engineering.
Mr. Neugebauer. Thank you. Mr. Shofner.
STATEMENT OF BRYAN L. SHOFNER, PRESIDENT, SHOFNER & ASSOCIATES
INSURANCE AGENCY, INC.
Mr. Shofner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Moore,
for allowing me to be here today. It is truly an honor to visit
with you on this matter. Again, as you said, my name is Bryan
Shofner. I am the President of Shofner & Associates Insurance
Agency, Incorporated. I am an independent insurance agent
selling primarily property and casualty insurance for both
residential and commercial clients. As an independent insurance
agent I represent several insurance companies and place my
customers' business with the company that best satisfies their
needs.
I have been asked to testify on the status of wind damage
mitigation research as well as what steps the industry has
undertaken to reduce damage from wind. Insurance companies have
significant information on risk factors as well as loss
severity and loss frequency by a given area of the country,
state, county, or city. Companies can determine the likelihood
of the given loss, which is used in the calculation of the
insurance premium that is charged to a specific policyholder or
applicant for insurance. This statistical information is
proprietary and intended for the sole use of that particular
company to aid in the rate making process. On the other hand,
insurance companies have very little information on wind damage
mitigation techniques and do very little research on wind
damage reduction. Insurance companies do not have the
engineering staff to accomplish this research. The offshore
reinsurance industry does some minor research, but this
information is also proprietary.
There are other organizations that provide statistical and
actuarial information, such as the Insurance Services Office.
They provide this information to those companies who do not
have their own data. ISO publishes information about loss costs
for different types of construction, which insurance companies
can use to determine appropriate rates. This organization also
recommends specific credits be given for compliance with
certain building codes or the use of materials such as window
shutters.
There are also other organizations such as the Institute
for Highway Safety and the Institute for Business and Home
Safety that provide research for the insurance industry;
however, these organizations have no budget for research for
wind hazard mitigation to the best of my knowledge.
I do believe there are several universities that conduct
research on wind damage and the ability of certain products to
withstand damage from wind; however, I am not aware of any
efforts by individual insurance companies or the industry to
build on these efforts.
While I do not have access to specific loss amounts for
wind damage, I can provide some insight into the amount of
damage caused by hurricanes. Average annual losses from
hurricanes in the United States are between $5 and $20 billion,
using current property valuations and 2000 census data. This
spread is due to the variance in modeling projections and
building performance. In the last half century, Florida and
Texas suffered the largest hurricane losses in the United
States. Based on adjusted losses, 38 percent of the direct
insured property losses caused by catastrophic hurricanes
occurred in Florida, with another 11 percent in Texas. The most
expensive windstorm in history, Hurricane Andrew, produced
insured losses of $15.5 billion or approximately $20 billion in
current dollars.
One aspect not often considered is the economic impact of
windstorms on the community. A report commissioned by the
Office of Florida Governor Lawton Chiles summed up the damage
from Hurricane Andrew as follows: 28,066 homes destroyed,
107,380 homes damaged, 82,000 businesses destroyed or damaged,
7,800 businesses closed as of September, 1992, and 86,000
people out of work as of September, 1992.
The immediate financial and market consequences of a major
catastrophe are swift, severe, and long lasting. Small insurers
may become insolvent and the remaining insurers will most
likely have limited resources to write additional risks or the
market for residential and commercial properties may be non-
existent. Catastrophe reinsurance process will increase and
availability will be limited for some time. Business owners are
often forced out of business with the additional loss of jobs
to their employees and the loss of revenue on the economy.
Due to a lack of real data demonstrating that mitigation is
truly effective, insurance companies have been reluctant to
provide insurance incentives for mitigation; however, changes
are beginning to occur with Florida and Texas mandating
incentives for certain mitigation techniques and/or compliance
with stringent building codes found in catastrophe-prone areas.
The Texas Wind Storm Insurance Association provides discounts
for specific features in homes in designated catastrophe-prone
areas.
New homes will fare better in windstorms, although much
more still needs to be done. The new International Residential
Building Code has better loads and a wind-borne debris region,
but lacks many basics. Cost effective measures for new homes
should include secondary water resistance, improved roof
coverings, improved design loads for two and three-story
buildings, treatment of soffits in design and wind borne
debris. Failure of states to adopt stringent building codes,
such as the IRC, as mandatory for all areas of the state will
continue to result in wind damage that could have been less
severe or possibly avoided all together.
Retrofitting is rare except in those cases where a loss has
already occurred and the home is being repaired and new
building codes have been adopted. Insurance incentives, public
education, and statewide stringent building codes can help
remedy this situation.
Barriers to widespread implementation of existing
mitigation techniques include lack of education, failure of
insurance companies to provide sufficient financial incentives,
knowledgeable construction personnel, cost to the homeowner,
and again, lack of mandatory building codes. Changes through
zoning restrictions or building codes are often opposed by
developers, homeowners, real estate, and even local government
who are concerned with the increased cost of construction.
Most coastline states are still susceptible to significant
devastation, including both property and non-property losses
from a major windstorm. Unless state-wide risk reduction
strategies, including stringent building codes and building
moratoriums in those areas most vulnerable to wind damage
occur, wind damage mitigation will not succeed in protecting
from loss of life and property.
Again, thank you for the opportunity to be here. I do
appreciate this.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Shofner follows:]
Prepared Statement of Bryan Shofner
Mr. Chairman, Members, my name is Bryan Shofner and I am the
President of Shofner A& Associates Insurance Agency, Inc. I am an
independent insurance agent selling primarily property and casualty
insurance for both residential and commercial clients. As an
independent insurance agent I represent several insurance companies and
place my customer's business with the company that best satisfies their
needs. I have been asked to testify on the status of wind damage
mitigation research as well as what steps the insurance industry has
undertaken to reduce damage from wind.
Insurance companies have significant information on risk factors as
well as loss severity and loss frequency by a given area of the
country, state, county or city. Companies can determine the likelihood
of a given loss which is used in the calculation of the insurance
premium that is charged to a specific policyholder or applicant for
insurance. This statistical information is proprietary and intended for
the sole use of that particular company to aid in the rate-making
process.
On the other hand, insurance companies have very little information
on wind damage mitigation techniques and do very little research on
wind damage reduction. Insurance companies do not have the engineering
staff to accomplish this research. The offshore re-insurance industry
does some minor research but this information is also proprietary.
There are other organizations that provide statistical and
actuarial information such as the Insurance Services Office. They
provide this information to those companies who do not have their own
data. ISO publishes information about loss costs for different types of
construction which insurance companies can use to determine appropriate
rates. This organization also recommends specific credits be given for
compliance with certain building codes or the use of materials such as
window shutters.
There are also organizations such as the Institute for Highway
Safety and the Institute for Business and Home Safety that provide
research for the insurance industry. However, these organizations have
no budget for research for wind hazard mitigation; to the best of my
knowledge.
I do believe there are several Universities that conduct research
on wind damage the ability of certain products to withstand damage from
wind. However, I am not aware of any efforts by individual insurance
companies or the industry to build on these efforts.
While I do no have access to specific loss amounts for wind damage;
I can provide some insight into the amount of damage caused by
hurricanes. Average annual losses from hurricanes in the US are between
$5-$20 billion dollars using current property valuations and 2000
census data. The spread is due to the variance in modeling projections
and building performance. In the last half century, Florida and Texas
suffered the largest hurricane losses in the United States. Based on
adjusted losses, 38 percent of the direct insured property losses
caused by catastrophic hurricanes occurred in Florida with another 11
percent in Texas. The most expensive windstorm in history, Hurricane
Andrew, produced insured losses of $15.5 billion or approximately $20
billion in current dollars.
One aspect not often considered is the economic impact of
windstorms on the community. A report commissions by the office of
Florida Governor Lawton Chiles summed up the damage from hurricane
Andrew as follows:
28,066 homes destroyed;
107,380 homes damaged;
82,000 businesses destroyed or damaged;
7,800 business closed as of September 1992; and
86,000 people out of work as of September 1992.
The immediate financial and market consequences of a major
catastrophe is swift, severe and long lasting. Small insurers may
become insolvent and the remaining insurers will most likely have
limited resources to write additional risks or the market for
residential and commercial properties may be non-existent. Catastrophe
re-insurance prices will increase and availability will be limited for
some time. Business owners are often forced out of business with the
additional loss of jobs to their employees and the loss of revenue on
the local economy.
Due to a lack of real data demonstrating that mitigation is truly
effective, insurance companies have been reluctant to provide insurance
incentives for mitigation. However, changes are beginning to occur with
Florida and Texas mandating incentives for certain mitigation
techniques and or compliance with stringent building codes found in
catastrophe-prone areas. The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association
provides discounts for specific features in homes in designated
catastrophe-prone areas.
New homes will fare better in windstorms although much more still
needs to be done. The new International Residential Building Code has
better loads and a wind-borne debris region but lacks many basics. Cost
effective measures for new homes should include secondary water
resistance, improved roof coverings, improved design loads for two and
three-story buildings, treatment of soffits in design and wind borne
debris. Failure of states to adopt stringent building codes (such as
the IRC) as mandatory for all areas of the state will continue to
result in wind damage that could have been less severe or possibly
avoided altogether.
Retrofitting is rare, except in those cases where a loss has
already occurred and the home is being repaired and new building codes
have been adopted. Insurance incentives, public education and state-
wide stringent building codes can help remedy this situation.
Barriers to widespread implementation of existing mitigation
techniques include lack of education, failure of insurance companies to
provide sufficient financial incentives, knowledgeable construction
personnel, cost to the homeowner and again, lack of mandatory building
codes. Changes through zoning restrictions or building codes are often
opposed by developers, homeowners, real estate and even local
government who are concerned with the increased cost of construction.
Most coast-line states are still susceptible to significant
devastation including both property and non-property losses from a
major windstorm. Unless state-wide risk-reduction strategies including
stringent building codes and building moratoriums in those areas most
vulnerable to wind damage occur, wind damage mitigation will not
succeed in protecting from loss of life and property.
This concludes my remarks and I would be happy to answer any
questions that you may have.
Biography for Bryan L. Shofner
PERSONAL HISTORY:
Birth date: Born March 17, 1965 in Lubbock, Texas
Marital Status: Married (13 years)
Family: Wife, Diane, with two sons, Taylor (Age 12) and Landon (Age 6)
EDUCATION:
License:
Currently hold Texas Local Recording Agents and Group I Licenses
Currently hold Non-Resident Licenses in New Mexico, Colorado and Kansas
Designations:
Currently pursuing Certified Insurance Counselors (CIC) and Accredited
Risk
Manager (ARM) designations
Achieved Commercial Lines ACSR Designation in 1993
College:
Baylor University--Texas Local Recording Agents (Ninety Classroom
Hours)
Texas Tech University--1983-1986 (Majored Psychology)
High School:
Coronado High School (Graduated 1983)
WORK EXPERIENCE:
Firm: Shofner & Associates Insurance Agency, Inc., 5106 Slide Road,
Lubbock, Texas 79414
Position: President
Duties: Officer and Manager
Length of Time: June 1986 to Present
AWARDS:
Texas 2001 Young Agent of The Year--Presented by the Independent
Insurance Agents of Texas and Travelers Property & Casualty--
2001 IIAT State Convention (San Antonio, Texas)
Recognized as a Leader in the Industry--2001 IIAT State Convention (San
Antonio, Texas)
PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES:
Currently serving on the Board of Directors for the
Independent Insurance Agents of Texas, 2002-2005
Served on the Texas IIAT Legislative Committee, 2000-
2001
Texas State Chairman for the Independent Insurance
Agents Junior Golf Classic Committee, 1999-2001
Ex-Officio Board Member for the Lubbock Association
of Insurance Agents, 1998-1999
President of the Lubbock Association of Insurance
Agents, 1997-1998
President-Elect of the Lubbock Association of
Insurance Agents, 1996-1997
Vice President of the Lubbock Association of
Insurance Agents, 1995-1996
Board Member of Lubbock Association of Insurance
Agents, 1994-1999
Currently serving as the President-Elect Community
Health Center of Lubbock
Treasurer Community Health Center of Lubbock, 1997-
2000
Board Member of Community Health Center of Lubbock,
1996 to present
Discussion
Mr. Neugebauer. Thank you, Mr. Shofner. We will now have a
question and answer period and I will start off with Dr.
Kiesling.
Texas Tech is obviously a leader in windstorm hazard
mitigation research and development, from providing information
to the public on how to stay safe during a tornado to
developing an in-house residence, safe houses. Texas Tech's
contribution in this field has been invaluable. What processes
are in place at Texas Tech to transfer the technology knowledge
developed at the Wind Science and Engineering Research Center
to other research institutions, government industries, and the
public?
Mr. Kiesling. A multitude of things would be in line with
that. First of all, we produce a significant number of
publications, as you would expect. Those are available on our
web site and distributed. A lot of them are presented at
meetings. We have an information, an outreach program. We
answer an enormous number of telephone inquiries from all
segments of the industries--the builders, the producers, the
public. We regularly teach short courses to, for example, the
American Society of Civil Engineers. We had a three-day short
course in this building last week with design professionals.
There are various outreach programs, a lot of educational
programs with K through 12, though our ability to do that
depends a lot upon the personnel we have available to do that.
So there are a number of mechanisms in place.
Mr. Neugebauer. Okay. Thank you. This is kind of a question
for all of you. In reading your testimony, you know, one thing
that became evident was that a lot of the research, or research
dollars that you perceive being allocated by the Federal
Government is going more to the weather, study of weather
patterns, and certainly that is an important part of that, but
the mitigation area probably is getting some of the least
amount of funding. And so your feelings as to how, if you are
allocating from the study of the atmosphere, the mitigation,
and then the implementation, what is your feeling on how that
pie should be divided?
Dr. Meade.
Dr. Meade. You are correct that most of the money is going
toward weather forecasting, and studies are a part of that.
It's not clear so much that it is a pie to be divided in the
sense that you could take the same amounts of money that you're
ordinarily giving to hazard mitigation simply because it may
cost more money to do that sort of research than it does--for
example, it requires satellites and all kinds of expensive
instrumentation. So, it's not clear that you can make a dollar
for dollar comparison. The point being, if loss reduction is
your goal, loss reduction being measured in terms of dollars,
the only way you are really going to do that is if you focus on
research that sort of feeds into programs such as those here at
Texas Tech or other engineering programs. And weather
forecasting programs are largely focused on helping people make
very short decisions, like whether to evacuate before a tornado
or before a hurricane. The data that is collected in weather
forecasting programs is generally not used in an engineering
context. At least, that is not why it is being collected in the
first place. So a lot, I think, you could certainly increase
the amount of money that is going toward the engineering side
and largely because the ratios are so imbalanced right now it
would be awfully hard to make a contribution error. I think it
would make a very large contribution to loss reduction.
Mr. Neugebauer. Dr. Bienkiewicz.
Dr. Bienkiewicz. Well, the level of support of engineering
activities, as stated by witnesses here, is low as compared to
the level of funding of phenomenon itself. I would like to say
that technologies which could be incorporated in such a way
that the costs of providing more information on phenomenon for
direct application of engineers would not be prohibited. And in
my testimony I am quoting an example of the project which
states that being developed by Engineering Research Center
founded by National Science Foundation and people are thinking
about placing a small-site radar system, and the place
specified for this project will be in Oklahoma. So there are
opportunities, and that is what I tried to state in my
testimony, of high technology dropping costs of doing science
and providing information for engineering complications. So
that might be one of the options which we should actively
pursue.
Mr. Neugebauer. My time has expired. The gentleman from
Kansas.
Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First question to Dr.
Kiesling. You talked about safe rooms and I guess my question
to you, sir, is can you give us an estimate, percentage-wise or
dollar amount, what it might cost to build a safe room into a
home to protect the occupants from death.
Dr. Kiesling. Yes. I would say that the low end of a
quality shelter, one that is really dependable, would be
approximately $3,000. They go up from there and it depends a
lot on whether you are talking about new construction or
retrofit because in a retrofit costs vary because of
accessibility problems and so forth, but I would say from
$3,000 to $6,000 is a reasonable estimate of the range.
Mr. Moore. And in terms of retrofit or new construction,
what kind of techniques or technologies would be incorporated
to protect people in a safe room.
Dr. Kiesling. In the case of new construction, of course,
the ideal situation is to simply choose a small room such as a
bathroom, a closet, a pantry, and harden and stiffen that to
provide the level of protection desired.
Those are designed so that they would provide protection
even if the house is totally destroyed.
In a retrofit situation there are concepts where you could
improve the same room. The critical thing is to have a
foundation to which to anchor, or a slab. But an economical way
in a retrofit situation is simply to put a shelter, build a
shelter down in the garage, a steel box if you will, and there
are many products on the market now available for that. And so
that is probably the low end of the cost range as well because
you can buy a manufactured shelter and simply anchor it and it
will provide good protection.
I would also distinguish between the in-residence shelter.
That is one that is accessible without going outdoors. Many
shelters are being built as say cellars or dugouts in the back
yard. Certainly they offer good protection if you are in them,
but you need to use them in a different way. In other words,
you need to access those when there is a weather warning
because if you wait until the storm is in progress, then you
would probably take greater risk to get to it than just staying
indoors.
Mr. Moore. So early alert makes a big difference.
Dr. Kiesling. It does in that type of shelter, yes. Of
course, in the case of community shelters, that is particularly
true because one has to have sufficient notice to get to the
shelter.
Mr. Moore. Dr. Kiesling, thank you, sir. Dr. Meade, you
indicated--and I wrote this down and this is not an exact
quote, but correct me if I am wrong, but I think it is close to
what you said--injury rate for manufactured housing buildings
is 20 times higher.
Dr. Meade. These are data from scientists at NOAA, the
National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, and in
looking at injury and death rates from tornadoes specifically
and looking at the history of the death rates from tornadoes
over the past century or so, in recent years they estimate that
the death rate for manufactured homes is 20 times higher than
that from conventional homes, yes. I can send you a detailed
reference of that, if you would like, sir.
Mr. Moore. Thank you. Mr. Shofner, in your testimony you
talked about hurricanes and not as much about tornadoes and I
think you indicated that you didn't have as much data; is that
correct?
Mr. Shofner. Yes.
Mr. Moore. Does your industry generally view these two
types of storms differently? If I am in Lubbock, Texas, or
Kansas City can I purchase coverage for tornado damage without
purchasing coverage for hurricanes?
Mr. Shofner. Well, the hurricanes, normally that coverage
is normally directed toward property that is located in tier
one and tier two counties. That is what we refer to as
coastline and just inside the coastline.
Mr. Moore. Okay. So I guess the answer is yes.
Mr. Shofner. Yes.
Mr. Moore. All right. If the Federal Government were to
fund a serious program for wind hazard research and reduction
or mitigation of damages, do you believe insurance companies
would really use that information----
Mr. Shofner. I believe they would.
Mr. Moore [continuing]. In setting rates?
Mr. Shofner. Yes, I believe they would. One of the things
that you would have to keep in mind is obviously--and I have
discussed this, touched on this--is that the cost of
construction to meet these qualifications, obviously from an
insurance standpoint, we have to insure reconstruction costs.
So naturally as that cost of construction increases, the
premiums increase. But your overall incentive, I think, is
underlying in that it makes the risk actually more marketable
to the insurance companies for their most aggressive rates that
they have.
Mr. Moore. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I have one more
question. My time is up, but can I ask one more question.
Mr. Neugebauer. Sure.
Mr. Moore. I think one of you mentioned--I don't know who
it was and please, whoever knows this information, if you do,
jump in--that there was a lot more research money devoted
toward hurricanes than tornadoes--I'm sorry, earthquakes than
tornadoes. Did somebody talk about that or did I read that in
some of your materials?
Dr. Meade. Actually, in the RAND study we pointed out that
roughly 85 percent of all the funding went toward weather-
related hazards and the second part was kind of gray. It was
educational, and that's an order of magnitude less than the
weather-related hazards and so the difference, of course,
between earthquakes and weather is that there is no earthquake
prediction going on, but there is a lot of weather forecasting
work going on.
Mr. Moore. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Neugebauer. Prior to lunch today we had the opportunity
to go out and tour a reinforced home under construction and
then we visited one that was completed and during that process
the builder of that home was at the site and it is about an
1,100 square foot home and the perimeter walls are foam forms
with concrete poured in the center of those foam blocks. In
this facility it also had an in-home closet for a tornado
shelter. The approximate cost of that was about $9,000 over
conventional construction and one of the questions that we
began to talk about during that process was, you know, what
kind of recognition is there in the insurance industry for the
fact that this house is much more fortified, wind resistant,
and storm resistant than the house sitting next to it? And one
of the ladies there that administers the program at the City
Community Development said that they had to shop around and
could not really get a quote that would give any recognition
for that until after they had made some calls to another part
of the country where they had been doing some homes like that
and were able to identify a company that would write that.
Because the important part of that, when you take that $9,000
and amortize it in today's rates, that is probably a four or
five--a $50 or $60 increase in the payment. Maybe not that much
at these rates, but one of the things that she said when they
finally did get an insurance quote, that it was about 50
percent of a conventional quote for the homes, conventional
construction.
I think one of the things that is the secret to us really
getting some meaningful research and development is getting the
recognition in the market place that this kind of mitigation
should be taking place and that there is a reward for the
homeowner that says, you know, I am going to buy the more
fortified home and the way I am going to pay for part of that--
maybe it doesn't amortize all of it, but possibly it could,
depending on the interest rates and so forth. Mr. Shofner, what
do you see as far as recognition of, for example, some of the
coastal areas and bringing into some mitigation efforts in the
insurance industry rewarding that?
Mr. Shofner. Well, I think one of the things that would
have to be done initially is that there would have to be some
education put in place to, obviously, consumers, but also the
companies. Just recently most everyone in the State of Texas is
aware of the fact that they gave--they have allowed for a
credit for different types of hail resistant roofs.
They classify a specific roof based on what you would place
and they will give a credit based on that roof if they have
filed with the state to offer that credit. That's the other
thing why a tie to educating the companies, is that the more
information that they have that is being done to mitigate these
types of losses, then they can go in and make an effort to make
a filing with the Department of Insurance in the state that
they are located in to offer an appropriate credit for what
they are doing.
Mr. Neugebauer. And one of the other things, I think in
testimony, and maybe it was yours or somebody else's, we were
talking about who's doing research in this and it looks like
most of the research is falling upon the Federal Government
right now. The insurance industry within itself is really not
doing much research and yet we also hear that they're reluctant
to share some of their loss data with researchers that are
actually doing that. What kinds of things do you think we can
do to bring together--I am a great believer in public/private
partnerships because my experience is when things are just in
the private sector, I mean just in the public sector without
private sector participation, they are slower to get off the
ground because ultimately the goal here is some
commercialization of the research that is going on here. How
can we foster that?
Mr. Shofner. That is a tough question. I think when we have
the answer to that, then we will have achieved a lot in
overcoming the issues that we are talking about here today.
I could probably--Do you mind if I defer to a gentlemen to
ask a quick question.
Mr. Neugebauer. Sure.
Mr. Shofner. I apologize.
Thank you very much for allowing me to do that. One thing
we could do is determine, show the company, and like I said
this goes back to the education of the companies. If we can
show them how they can save in a specific area by giving these
credits over the long haul, I feel like that they would become
more aggressive in their approach to offering these credits, if
they see what other companies are able to do and how much money
they are actually able to save as these storms occur.
Mr. Moore. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Maybe it was you, Dr. Bienkiewicz--if it was somebody else,
forgive me--but you testified or I read in the materials that a
significant portion of the loss, the economic loss, will come
from interruptions in business operations. Did you touch on
that in some of your materials?
Dr. Bienkiewicz. Yes.
Mr. Moore. What can we do, if anything, to guard against
that, protect against that economic loss from interruption to
business?
Dr. Bienkiewicz. There are several elements which one
should refer to. First of all, mitigation measures before it
even happens so that there are no interruptions in business.
One of the examples which we are facing, that was approached by
the state agencies in one of the western states, is that
frequently transportation is affected by high wind effects and
then the transfer of goods from West to East Coast is really
suffering because of costs. So there are regional issues which
state agencies and businesses are facing and I suppose if the
region beyond hurricane and tornado alleys and hurricane zones
would be identified if we want true, true mitigation of a lot
of our problems, that would significantly minimize professional
exceptions to business and examples of application.
Mr. Moore. Thank you, sir. Dr. Kiesling and anybody else
who wants to join, if you have something to offer here, I would
like to hear your thoughts as well. We talked, one of my
earlier questions you answered about safe homes for private
homes. What about people, low income folks who live in our
communities? What do we do to protect low income people who
can't afford the $3,000 to $6,000 for either new construction
or retrofitting? How do we protect those folks?
Dr. Kiesling. This is a real challenge and unfortunately
some of them live in the most vulnerable homes so that the
community shelter offers one solution. And we are seeing,
particularly in your state, more and more community shelters
being built in schools and in manufactured housing parks. I
think Wichita probably has one of the only ordinances that
requires the construction of community shelters in manufactured
housing parks and many of those low income people live there.
There is no simple solution I know of to that. Though I would
also remark that the incentive grants have a tremendous
stimulus to shelter construction and certainly anyone can
offer, can get the protection fairly economically. It may not
be the most aesthetic thing, but after the Oklahoma City
tornadoes, for example, and the incentive grants there, many
people just bought concrete boxes to sit in the back yard. They
are not optimum, they're not ideal, but many people were in
there when the next tornado came through and they performed
okay. So there are more economical shelters available and
furthermore the small incentive grants can make a great deal of
difference in making them available.
Mr. Moore. Incentive grants from the government?
Dr. Kiesling. Well, of course, most of the stimulus has
come to date under the Stafford Act after a disaster when a
percentage of the relief and recovery funds go into mitigation
and the states have chosen to make incentive grants available.
In some states, Arkansas for example, the state annually
appropriates money for shelter incentive grants and they make
small grants, a thousand dollars, but they always have more
takers than--so they might come from anywhere, but certainly I
think that is an area in which the states could be more active.
Mr. Moore. You mentioned construction of these safe homes
or some sort of community shelter in some of the manufactured
home places. You mentioned the Wichita thing.
Is that happening in other places around the country?
Dr. Kiesling. Not to the same extent that I know of. I
would also mention there that I understand that a bill was just
signed into law in December.
Mr. Moore. Okay.
Dr. Kiesling. That HUD will provide monies for shelter
incentive grants. It's not a large amount of money, but it is a
beginning and that can be very significant and I think they are
aiming at the low income families.
Mr. Moore. Thank you, Dr. Kiesling. May I have one more
question, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Neugebauer. Yes, sir. Go ahead.
Mr. Moore. Obviously the last two years we thought a whole
lot in this country about homeland security. How does that tie
in or can that tie in with some of these safe homes and other
things? Is there a way to make dual use of that? Anybody?
Dr. Kiesling. Well, we think so; that is, the safe room,
for example, can readily be retrofitted to protect against
chemical and biological hazards, relatively inexpensively, I
think. I see some potential for that. They are also, of course,
much more resistant to blast, but I don't see that as much of
an advantage in our residence. I'm not likely to have a warning
when a blast will come. So I think there is some cross-
advantages there that can be taken advantage of.
Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Neugebauer. Yes, sir. One of the things that was, I
think, a common thread in your recommendations as each one of
you talked about where we go from here and I think one of those
was, you know, a more organized structure for the research and
development that is going on right now. We had a little bit of
discussion back at our lunch table today and that really kind
of maybe goes to the point of, if we move forward from here
with some meaningful research dollars, you know, what is the
best oversight agency for this type of research? Dr. Meade.
Dr. Meade. Well, that is a difficult question because you
have--you generally have agencies that are doing research right
now and that would primarily be the National Science Foundation
and NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Does that translate into the best agency for the oversight? I'm
not sure. And so, you know, going to the NEHRP problem, you
have FEMA as the oversight agency, but of course there are no
R&D dollars whatsoever within FEMA. Maybe a similar structure
would be appropriate, but a lot of this gets into goals that
you hope to accomplish in this research program. In other
words--and you talked yourself about what do you want the
outcomes to be in five to 10 years. So sometimes gaining the
outcomes might require a different agency to carry out the
oversight function as opposed to those who are executing them,
the actual R&D mission. A safe bet is that there will probably
be more than one agency involved and so the question is how do
you coordinate it.
Mr. Neugebauer. Dr. Bienkiewicz.
Dr. Bienkiewicz. It is my understanding that there is
already discussion on the authorization for NEHRP, recent
discussion in the House, but the need to put out with the NEHRP
was moved from FEMA to NIST and as far as I can understand from
discussion, a different region of FEMA now being under Homeland
Security Department, but also from my perspective, NIST
probably is on the side of implementation and codes and
standardization so, of course, it seems to be an appropriate
place, but it is tough for me to make.
Mr. Neugebauer. One of the things I think--and I think you
mentioned two agencies. One of the things that, and this is a
personal opinion, is that when we get multiple agencies
overseeing, sometimes when we just have one agency overseeing
things it is onerous, but if you really want something to get
real onerous, you assign multiple agencies.
Mr. Moore. Just your personal opinion? A lot of people
share that.
Mr. Neugebauer. And the other thing is too, if we start
getting two or three different, you know, groups in and they
may have different committee oversight and then first thing you
know, we can't trace where the money is going, there is no
accountability, and so it is my personal opinion that we
identify an agency and task them with a broad task of, you
know, talking about, you know, from kind of A to Z, from the
research to the implementation and actually the
commercialization of that. And I would task that agency that we
have to have the private sector at different levels. And I know
that some of the research that Texas Tech has done, I think the
National Building Institute, the homebuilders at the national
level, getting some money to or toward some granting
opportunities, are working in connection with that.
I think you have to bring all of those people to the table
if you are going to get an outcome that will be accepted in the
market place. Ernie, you want to reflect on that?
Dr. Kiesling. I was simply going to suggest, in answer to
your earlier question, that to me a critical element is the
language of the bill creating this thing so that the agency
administering it has the ability to respond to the broad
spectrum of research that needs to be done and is not limited
by their mission. My sense would be that you can take care of a
lot of that in drafting the language of the bill itself. I've
read the House Bill 2020 and I think it does cover a lot of
areas and would enable whatever agency to put it, to sponsor
the kind of research that needs to be done.
Mr. Neugebauer. Anybody else.
Dr. Bienkiewicz. I think that some of these issues were
addressed in Bill 2020 and cross-integration of the activities
and the agencies.
Mr. Moore. Kind of getting down to nuts and bolts for just
a minute. We've talked covering a number of different areas
here, but I guess I wanted to ask, just in terms of what
people, individual homeowners might do, either in retrofitting
or home builders of new construction, what techniques are
available to build stronger homes that will withstand wind
damage and is it cost effective? Are people just spending
unnecessarily if they try to put a few extra dollars into
strengthening roof systems, for example, or walls? Can somebody
talk about that? Is it going to keep claims from being made, is
it going to be recognized by the insurance industry as we might
not have to pay as much money out in a situation like this and
therefore rates are going to go down? Dr. Kiesling.
Dr. Kiesling. I think that is an appropriate challenge for
the research community and then we can say that there are some
measures, more if you've got connections, stronger connections
of roof to wall, wall to floor.
Mr. Moore. Connections in what respect? How would that
happen?
Dr. Kiesling. Well, there are so-called hurricane clips
that you can use and they would work well in any kind of wind
and those are so economical and so easily done that there is
little question, I think, about the long-term economic benefit
of that.
Mr. Moore. If they are so economical, why wouldn't people
in wind territories now be using them?
Dr. Kiesling. They do use them pretty extensively in
hurricanes because there the public is convinced of the high
probability of occurrence during the lifetime of the house.
In the tornado regions, again they are not that convinced
of that, but I think it is the research community's challenge
and obligation to provide reliable data and it takes a long
time to accumulate that because you have to have an event
before you can assess the effectiveness of it, basically, or
verify the effectiveness of it. But I think we need to get
reliable information to the homeowner and to the insurance
companies as to what is the benefit and that is a big
challenge. And it depends obviously upon the locale as well,
the probability of the occurrence of a wind event. So if we go
on a scale, we can readily say that some things we know are now
effective, but other measures we would have to do some research
to be able to say what is the effectiveness.
Mr. Moore. Anybody else have a comment on this?
Mr. Shofner. I would agree with Dr. Kiesling. I mean, I
think it would just take a lot of research efforts to be able
to provide information to the insurance companies and put that
information in front of their actuarials where they can
properly look at it and see what the actual claims dollars that
are going out to those loss site areas for homes that maybe
aren't retrofitted or constructed to that quality as compared
to the ones that are. And then over the time period, hopefully
they would be able to see a necessity and see the advantages of
being able to offer those credits.
Mr. Moore. Dr. Bienkiewicz.
Dr. Bienkiewicz. Yes, I would like to extend this
discussion to beyond single-home dwellings and into engineered
buildings. If we need to begin in hurricane regions, they have
none of the systems which allow you to reduce net load
impacting components of buildings. When you make a single-
family move, you have reduction and you can design a retrofit
roof which will perform well and will meet current
specifications for a region. So the need is urgent and I think
we need to invest more money to improving them.
Mr. Moore. Dr. Meade, anything?
Dr. Meade. I don't think I have anything.
Mr. Moore. I guess not to push, but to push a little bit,
we have been having hurricanes and tornadoes for a few years
around this world and we have been, people have suffered a lot
of losses, including loss of property and loss of life. Is
there any way to expedite this process? How do we hurry this up
so we can save more dollars and lives in the future. Anybody?
Yes, sir, Dr. Meade.
Dr. Meade. I offer the opinion that if you can make it so
that people can benefit more, even though the hurricanes and
tornadoes do not occur every year, as Dr. Kiesling pointed out
that the working probability is that a hurricane will hit a
house once in its lifetime, but even so, that is a difficult
catalyst for most homeowners and so you really need to see it
reflected in a month to month or year to year basis in their
insurance premiums so that it is in their economic interest
to----
Mr. Moore. So it comes down to money, doesn't it?
Dr. Meade. It totally comes down to money.
Mr. Moore. Well, we don't have that problem in Congress,
I'll tell you.
Mr. Neugebauer. I think to continue the dialogue we have
been having, I think where I am personally, coming from the
private sector for a number of years before getting to Congress
is, you know, you have got to have an entrance strategy and
then what we call an exit strategy. I think what the
Congressman was talking about, what is our exit strategy here,
when do we get to the point where we have some stuff that is
cost effective that we can implement and we can get that
information out to the private sector so they can start
building and implementing this on a broader basis? I know we
are building homes today in Lubbock with the in-house shelter
that Dr. Kiesling has been working on, but I don't know how
much retrofitting we are actually doing and probably the
retrofit is probably the bigger piece of the pie. Certainly
from this point forward, the new construction, it is easy to do
that, but what kind of research are you doing on mitigation
structures that, I don't want to oversimplify it, but you are
almost going to have to, to me, to get it where you can go down
to Lowe's or one of the building supply places and get a kit
that that homeowner can take home and install in their home or
get installed on a relatively inexpensive and quick basis
without this major, you know, reorganization of their home.
Dr. Meade. Your comment is correct that it would be a lot
easier if you could go down to Lowe's and buy something off the
shelf, ideally something that would come, for example, from the
recent program that you are talking about. But it does come
down to dollars and cents. For example, you can go down to
Lowe's right now and you can buy insulation, which you will put
in your house and which will decrease your energy bill. People
will do that because they can see that it does decrease their
energy bill. They don't go and buy insulation as part of being
a good citizen. So the idea is there needs to be some mechanism
in place for them to go down and make this investment in wind
mitigation technology that it will have some sort of payback to
them and payback has to hopefully occur before the next tornado
or before the next hurricane because if you are waiting for
them, if they are making a bet, so to speak, that a hurricane
is going to occur, a tornado is going to occur next year,
that's--not too many people are going to purchase it, no.
Mr. Neugebauer. Go ahead and then, Ernie, we will to go
you.
Dr. Kiesling. I think another difficulty there is that how
can that benefit come without say a reduction in insurance
premiums and how can the insurance company assess the value of
that investment or improvement made? So that is a difficult
thing to do and I guess education is the answer we would give
to nearly all questions. But as you mentioned, it comes down to
economics in the end and it may be unrealistic to expect the
scenario that you just presented.
Mr. Neugebauer. Mr. Shofner.
Mr. Shofner. I also believe if there were stricter building
codes that were mandated, I think that insurance companies
would see that information as a positive step and I think they
would move quicker from that standpoint to react to what people
are doing proactively to try to limit their losses and I think
in return they would go out and try to see what they could do
from an incentive on the other side. I think it would just be a
quicker step.
Mr. Neugebauer. Well, I know that the insurance company is
recognizing, for example, I think if you have a certain kind of
lock, dead bolt locks, and if you've got an alarm system in
your home, now we've gone to roof structures, I mean, so it is
not, we are not setting any precedent here.
But what I heard you saying earlier is that there is really
not tangible evidence, or the perception in the industry is
that there is not tangible evidence, that insuring house 541888
and 542088 and one of them has, you know, a different
structural, a more rigid structure, that it is less of an
insurance risk than the one next door that is conventional,
that there is just not recognition in the marketplace.
Mr. Shofner. Currently right now there is not, unless it is
a large difference in risk. When you are talking about two
homes that are right next to each other, in my opinion, no,
there's not, but if you have a home that is inside the city
limits from versus one that is just outside the city limits,
that could create a difference there because----
Dr. Meade. Well, maybe known to several parts of the
insurance industry. It is certainly not known to homeowners,
but it is known, for example, that if you go out and buy a red
sports car, you are going to pay more insurance than you are if
you are going to go out and just buy a standard sedan of some
sort. Or you know that if you have young children who are
driving in your household, your insurance rates go up.
Mr. Neugebauer. I have experienced that, both the red
sports car and the children.
Dr. Bienkiewicz, did you want to add anything to that?
Dr. Bienkiewicz. I would like to make a comment about a
national program which I developed which would help out
industry as well as practicing engineers. And I brought with
me, it is an older version of the NEHRP provisions. This is one
volume. There is another volume coming and it has been revised
several times. It is a tangible product coming from that
program. It provides bolts and nuts related to design and
details and so on and so forth. Now when we talk to practicing
engineers, there are some codes, and there are some others, so
we can provide the toolboxes. This is one of the examples.
Mr. Neugebauer. Would you like to enter that as part of
your testimony?
Dr. Bienkiewicz. Yes.
[Note: Information referred to is ``NEHRP Recommended
Provisions for Seismic Regulations for New Buildings and Other
Structures,'' 1997 ed., Part 1: Provisions (FEMA 302), http://
www.bssconline.org/pdfs/fema302a.pdf]
Mr. Neugebauer. Okay. That would be fine. My time is up.
Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Some have alleged and I
think we have made reference to this without--I guess we have
mentioned the number, but HR 2020, Hurricane and Tornado
Related Hazards Research Act Summary, and the Congressman here
is one of the co-sponsors, as are many of the Members of
Congress here in Texas, in Kansas, and other places where you
would expect to have wind damage. And I guess I would ask all
of you, if you have national associations--I know some of you
certainly do--to contact your national association and ask some
of the Members of Congress to sign on to this because if this
gets passed, what it does, obviously--there is a handout back
there somewhere as to the bill and shows the current bill
sponsors on there--but it requires the Director of the Office
of Science and Technology Policy to establish an interagency
group to be responsible for the development and implementation
of a coordinated hazard reduction and research development and
technology transfer program to achieve major measurable
reductions in losses within 10 years. And it is interesting to
me to hear representative Shofner from the insurance industry
here talk about the need for stricter code standards. And
sometimes people get upset when Congress or other governmental
agencies mandate additional regulations or requirements, but, I
mean, there is, maybe we have to balance it out and work it out
here. By the same token, I guess, we would, I think, really
like to see--this is certainly not a shot at Mr. Shofner--we
would like to see the insurance industry moving in this area
and doing their own research as well, coming up with answers to
some of this. And if the information is available and it does
warrant a reduction in premiums for insurance, then if the
insurance industry recognizes and conveys the information to
the homeowner, or other people, that you are going to get a
reduced premium if you do these things in construction or
retrofitting, then it might well be worth it and we all save
money and more importantly, lives, because we can replace
property, but we can't replace lives. Any other comments on
that? I'm not trying to lecture here. I'm just--we are having a
discussion, I guess.
Dr. Kiesling. I would simply repeat my earlier point that
any incentive is highly significant in terms of improvements.
And we've seen where over and over, shelters and other things,
where any time we can offer an incentive of any type, be it in
financing, be it in cost reduction of operation, participating
in the initial cost, whatever it is--another tax abatement is
working pretty well in some areas, where say the cost of
improvement is not taxed and so forth--and so I think whatever
can be used--I think maybe what may be more significant than
the dollar value of that is the educational value of letting
the customer and the homeowner know that there is a benefit to
their making that investment.
Mr. Moore. Mr. Chairman? Any questions.
Mr. Neugebauer. You know, we are having this dialogue, and
as I was reading the testimony, a couple of things kind of
started crystallizing for me. As we look at the mitigation
aspects of it, we have life and we have property and in
Ernie's, Dr. Kiesling's safe house or safe room, you know, the
primary emphasis there is life. And because in a major tornado,
I don't know what, and maybe you have done some testing on
these reinforced concrete houses, how much that structure
survives in a tornado. In a hurricane, though, the structural
aspects of it seem to be easier to mitigate, are more
mitigatable than, you know a category 4-5 in a tornado. So you
begin to put that research together.
Do you see different goals and objectives in the hurricane
side as you are doing the tornado side? Obviously, up to a
certain level of winds, on the perimeter of the tornado, you
are dealing, you know, with the same wind issue. Are there
different goals in some ways there?
Dr. Kiesling. Well, certainly there are differences and I
would suggest that in tornado regions, perhaps more important
than loss of life is the reduction in anxiety. Because when you
look at the statistics, the number of deaths from tornadoes is
significant certainly, and we want to save those lives, but I
think a much greater cost might be the anxiety and the loss of
productivity, the health problems and so forth created by the
anxiety. And so I think that is a strong justification for the
safe room. Whereas in a hurricane region, it is much more of a
reality that it is going to occur. And I think there are
differences in requirements and design criteria and we have a
long ways to go in optimizing the designs of buildings and
shelters for the particular application. Shelters have not been
popular until recently in hurricane regions and so I think we
will see a lot of evolution there in the next few years. I am
walking all around your question, but I--certainly there are
many similarities and differences, but I think the objectives
are somewhat different in the economics of it because of the
higher probability of occurrence in hurricanes.
Mr. Neugebauer. Dr. Meade.
Dr. Meade. Well, you simply have much more time to
contemplate the hurricane than you do the tornado and so people
know about advancing hurricanes usually 48 hours, 72 hours
beforehand and so all kinds of actions are taken to prepare
themselves. As Dr. Kiesling was pointing out, the really
frantic, last-minute preparations that are taking place for a
tornado and you are basically trying to save lives if it is
bearing down hard enough.
Mr. Neugebauer. Yeah, I was just thinking that, and this is
in very simple terms, so if I live on the coast, what I am
thinking is I am working at my house and I'm nailing up the
shutters and I'm putting the plywood up there and really what I
am worried about is--I'm going to evacuate--what I am worried
about is when I come back, you know, how much of my personal
belongings or my home is going to be intact?
Dr. Meade. But you can do that because of the nature of the
events, right.
Mr. Neugebauer. But with a tornado, I only really have one
thing on my mind and that is my personal safety, you know,
because, as Ernie says, it is a quick event, it is going to be
intense, most likely, and then it is going to be over and I
would think that most people, when they go to a tornado
shelter, are not worried about whether their house is going to
be--I mean it's certainly a thought, but they are more
concerned at that moment of their personal safety.
Dr. Meade. Right. The economic losses from tornadoes is
still quiet significant. Again, whatever differences between
mine and Mr. Shofner's testimony can only be indicative of the
difficult state of the data on this problem, but the estimated
annualized losses of hurricanes are more than $5 billion a year
and those for tornadoes only were at $1 billion a year so it is
still a big number.
Mr. Neugebauer. Still a big number.
Dr. Bienkiewicz. I would like to make a comment that the
majority of tornadoes are not extremely strong so if you look
from a statistical point of view, we could reduce the amount of
damage of tornadoes. I took part in a field trip last year in
Kansas. Saw several tornadoes, hundreds of tornadoes, and some
of them seemed to be not very strong, but nevertheless damage
was quite significant. We look to develop new construction as
well as old construction. Old construction, a lack of
connecting structure to foundation or connecting roofs to
walls--well, I won't get off on that. But then there is new
construction, new developments and the issue of soft floor, the
issue of additions and maybe last-minute modifications of
construction and then we can build a room that can stand
internal pressure like that in the process. Then we notice some
problems with buildings that seem to be engineered, they seem
to have flaws in design. So I think that we need more data
resulting, documented data resulting from event investigations.
We can learn a lot. There are some designs which are used in
the whole country and you can see that under this one extreme
condition, you can see the weak spots. So I see similarity in
our efforts to reduce damage as we consider hurricanes or
tornadoes, but not extreme, but those which occur most quickly.
Mr. Moore. I don't know that I have as many questions as
another comment and if it provokes anything we're going to stop
for a minute, but we talk in Congress a lot about values and
how we value education, we value our troops, and we value all
this and that. What I usually find is we really spend our money
where we really believe our values are, not just what we talk
about. And certainly life is important. I think all of us
acknowledge that, protecting human life from unnecessary loss
of life in situations like this. And early warning can
certainly aid in reducing the loss of human life in situations
where there is a tornado and these weather radios that have
come out recently, those--I mean, they cost $20 or something.
If people have those and can get the information immediately,
they can take shelter if they have shelter in their homes or
wherever they are living. And obviously there is an education
component to all this and many people in the population now
understand what they need to do to protect themselves and that
is really cost effective that measures can be taken to protect
life.
Beyond that, I think we have discussed here today that
there are some things in construction, new construction and
retrofitting, that we can do that will fortify and strengthen
homes or building structures. That again is going to protect
life and property.
And it is sort of frustrating here because we know what
needs to be done and I think we just kind of need to make this
happen, legislation or something similar to this in Congress
that will get the study done to gather the data that needs to
be provided to the insurance industry to give some incentives
back to people and maybe, you know, the Congress can hear and
our colleagues, we can talk about other things that we can do
as far as incentives. But it does come down to, as one of you
said, to money in a lot of situations. We just need to say that
we value the things we're talking about here today and we're
willing to make a commitment, a reasonable commitment, to spend
some funds to make sure that these things are protected, life
and property, and most of all life.
That is my closing statement. I am not trying to shut this
down. I am inviting comments, if other people have comments, or
the Congressman as well.
Dr. Meade. I would re-emphasize need and now different
hazards--we deal with a lot of floods and people know that it
is more predictable that you are going to get flooded if you
live in a flood plain. Nevertheless people continue to live
there and we continue to have a lot of development there----
Mr. Moore. Because you can buy homes cheaper there.
Dr. Meade. Exactly. There are different opinions and I mean
there are lots of other discussion going on in Congress about
why those incentives are all messed up, but even still, in a
situation where people know about the hazard, even still they
don't take steps and there is plenty of technology to solve the
problem, but again, they need to be incentivized.
So there is an analogy here certainly that living in
certain parts of the country, you know that you are subjected
to wind hazards and that you have a reasonable probability of
suffering under that, but you need to be incentivized still to
take action to solve that problem for yourself.
Mr. Shofner. I just would like to add that that is one of
the hurdles that insurance companies face in that Texas is
unique because it's what I call a triple-threat state.
There's a handful of other states that have the same deals,
but in Texas we're exposed to hurricanes, tornadoes, and hail,
which a lot of states are not. And so with hurricanes there is
a lot of research done as far as being able to determine
possibly when our coastline may be hit from a hurricane and
what size and what have you, but it is very difficult for
insurance companies and actuaries to determine if a tornado
were to pop up, where it might be and when the next hailstorm
is going to come up so those are the things that I know they
are trying to work on.
Mr. Moore. Well, we've got quite a coastline in Kansas, but
fortunately we don't have too many hurricanes.
Mr. Neugebauer. Any other final comments by any of the
panelists?
Dr. Kiesling. We'd simply plead for patience because it is
a very, very complex problem and certainly building the
research infrastructure to address that problem is not a short-
term process. For example, we are graduating very few people
who are capable of assessing the hazards and the risks in their
areas and then come up with the solutions for it. And then it
takes a long time to build an academic program to do effective
research. I think again the action that you are contemplating
can be very, very significant there because an important
element in developing programs and in attracting faculty to
them and so forth, an important consideration is the prospect
of long-term funding. I don't know a person that can go into
the research business without some hope that there is going to
be a future in that area. So it is going to take a long time
and we can best probably address the quality issues in housing
through building codes, but that too is a slow process and, as
you pointed out, I think we're replacing only about one percent
of our housing inventory per year. So the results are not going
to be coming quickly, but we must take the first steps and
begin to turn it around. I think in terms of curbing the
damages, rather than reversing them, because it is a long-term
process that is not going to be easy to solve.
Mr. Moore. Randy, may I have one more minute.
Mr. Neugebauer. Sure.
Mr. Moore. Mr. Chairman said was that your final statement
and I said well, maybe it was, but I would like to just kind of
sum up here for myself. I'm certainly not trying to shut this
down again. I just want to thank the Congressman here for
convening this very, very important hearing. I want to thank
our witnesses. All of you have been very good, to my knowledge,
about what happens here and what needs to happen in the future.
I really mean that sincerely and I appreciate your expertise
that you shared with us here today and I appreciate the
audience being here. Frankly, it's helpful to have the news
media out because the extent that this kind of hearing is
covered and the people in this area and around the country
understand and know that there are things they can do to
protect themselves is going to assist what we are trying to
accomplish here. So again, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Neugebauer. Well, thank the Congressman from Kansas for
coming and his interest in this issue. I would just close by
saying that I appreciate all of the witnesses that came and
took time out of your business schedules. I feel like we had
the ``A'' panel today to discuss this issue. Obviously, many of
you are recognized as being on the forefront of this very
important research. I thank the folks in the audience that came
and I hope that you found this discussion as interesting as I
did. I think from my perspective, and I think I've stated this,
is I think we need to move forward with a program and I think
Dr. Kiesling summed up one of the important aspects, that it is
a sustainable program so that we know how many dollars are
going to be available for this kind of research and so if there
is not an infrastructure in place, that that infrastructure can
be put in place to sustain long-term research in that respect.
I also believe very strongly that we are going to have to
bring more private sector involvement into this process because
in the final analysis, they are going to have to be the ones
that build it and market it to people that are going to utilize
it. I think we have to bring our friends in the insurance
industry into this because they are--they have a risk, they
have a financial interest in this, and I think that they can
probably share some insight and help with some of the modeling.
I heard at lunch today, talking about how do we model these
events and to determine and to develop an economic model
determining whether certain things are really economic or not.
One of the things that I think makes this a difficult subject
for commercialization is that people are insuring a risk or are
spending money to mitigate a risk that may never actually
materialize and people are more, in our country, are more into,
I am interested in the problem that I have today. When you tell
them what the odds are that they are going to experience a
tornado or odds are that they are going to experience a
hurricane, you know, those odds are pretty low.
And so there are a lot of dynamics here that I think have
to be worked out, but I think certainly bringing the private
sector to the table and bringing the insurance industry adds
some additional information that is needed at this table. I
look forward to working on some long-term solutions that make
sense for our country and for our region. And so thank you and
if there are not any other questions we are adjourned.
[Whereupon, the Committee was adjourned.]
Appendix 1:
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Additional Material for the Record