Abstract
Wind is one of the deadliest and most expensive hazards in the United States. Wind hazards cause significant damage to buildings and economic losses to homeowners. Economic losses average approximately $3.8 billion annually from hurricane winds and are not decreasing, even despite enhanced construction practices to reduce wind damage. Thus, the effectiveness of mitigation strategies should be evaluated in order to lower the cost incurred by this hazard. Several studies have suggested building code improvements to mitigate the wind hazard, this additional comprehensive research provides selecting economically beneficial mitigation strategies to consider in building code revisions. In a step toward addressing this need, the current study was conducted to determine the cost effectiveness of mitigation strategies for new and retrofit construction of a wood-framed, single-family, residential building case study. Net benefit, defined as the difference between the life-cycle wind loss before and after implementation of the mitigation strategy, was calculated for 15 wind mitigation strategies and their combinations, with new and retrofit construction costs ranging between $1,200 to $12,000 and a decision-making time horizon ranging between 5 and 30 years. Payback periods, defined as the number of years to recover the investment, were calculated for each mitigation strategy. Results were summarized by cost effectiveness for all ASCE 7 wind speed contour intervals. The results of this study serve as a starting point for further refinement of the economic justification needed to properly evaluate potential building code changes.
Highlights
Wind is one of the deadliest and most expensive hazards in the United States (Emanuel et al, 2006)
Performance-Based Hurricane Engineering framework was frequently used to assess risk and cost-effectiveness of mitigation measures of residential structures subjected to hurricane hazard (Barbato et al, 2011; Barbato et al, 2013; Unnikrishnan and Barbato, 2015; Unnikrishnan and Barbato, 2016a; Unnikrishnan and Barbato, 2016b; Unnikrishnan and Barbato, 2017)
We aim to provide detailed and informative guidance for decision-makers and other stakeholders to improve their understanding of the effectiveness of mitigation strategies which can enhance community resilience against wind hazards and form a basis for building code revisions
Summary
Wind is one of the deadliest and most expensive hazards in the United States (Emanuel et al, 2006). It is a common practice to consider multi-hazard criteria for hazard mitigation planning and cost calculation, especially in the coastal region where flood and wind are the two most common hazards, it is important to calculate the losses from the wind hazard individually and to evaluate the cost effectiveness of the mitigation plan. This is because flood events are more severe but less frequent, while wind events are the most commonly occurring atmospheric phenomena causing damage to structure even when there is no flood or storm surge. While the increasing elevation of buildings may reduce the chances of losses from flood events, it concurrently increases the chance of losses from the force of wind, which increases with elevation. Hamid et al (2010) used a probabilistic model to assess risk to insured residential property associated with hurricane wind. Pinelli et al (2004) estimated expected annual damage induced by hurricane winds on various building types for possible damage states
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