Now in its fifth edition, IBHS’s Rating the States  report evaluates the 18 states along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts based on residential building code adoption, enforcement, training, education and contractor licensing. In this episode of Disaster Discussions, we’re joined by Dr. Ian Giammanco, IBHS Managing Director of Standards and Data Analytics and Dr. Milad Shabanian, IBHS Codes and Standards Engineer, to discuss the results of the latest report. The episode covers the history and mission of Rating the States, the methodology used to calculate state scores, and a deep dive into the results. We highlight several states and what they’re doing right to achieve high scores, as well as looking at ways low-scoring states can improve their scores in the next report.

In this episode of Disaster Discussions our guest host Dr. Ian Giammanco sits down with Dr. David Roueche from Auburn University to discuss where we are in our effort to reduce the damage caused by extreme winds. The two discuss the success story of the modern building codes used along the hurricane-prone coast but also the lack of progress in areas which primarily deal with the impacts of severe convective storms, including tornadoes. During this Disaster Discussions we also delve into what damage modes in tornadoes are the greatest threat to life safety, how different building attributes can act as damage amplifiers leading to even more damage, and the vulnerability of manufactured and mobile homes to tornadoes.

On this episode, meteorologists and wind engineers head to Bamberg, South Carolina to survey tornado damage after a January severe weather event. Join the discussion to explore an example of the operational application of wind engineering during a tornado survey from John Quagliariello and Matt Gropp with the Columbia, SC National Weather Service office. IBHS’s Ali Merhi joins the conversation as well to share research perspectives from the ground as IBHS builds its partnership with local NWS offices and the broader weather enterprise.

As we celebrate just over one year of our Disaster Discussions Podcast, our staff chose their Top 5 favorite episodes of our podcast so far. These conversations stood out to us as informative and engaging, and we invite you to go listen to each episode in its entirety! Thank you to all of our listeners for making this year plus of our podcast a success. We're looking forward to bring you more insightful interviews from a variety of guests across the industries served by IBHS!

Wind-driven rain is not only a nuisance, but a damage amplifier, generating costly water intrusion claims each year. On August 30, 2023, Hurricane Idalia slammed into the Florida panhandle as a Category 3, and IBHS's Research Scientist, Ali Merhi, joined the University of Florida deployment team to deploy IBHS's wind-driven rain observing tower. This presented an opportunity to learn how rain drop size, distribution, and wind affect how water penetrates the building envelop. In this episode, Ali shares his experience on this deployment and how it is only the second such observational dataset of its kind, and we'll learn how these deployments further our understanding of weather's impact on the built environment.

We speak with Yana Valancovich from the University of California about her work in educating communities across California and the Western U.S. about the risks of wildfire. Different landscapes have different fuels that can make a community vulnerable to wildfire, so understanding your community and personal risk are key in preparing your home properly. Her on-the-ground perspective from studying events like the Paradise, CA Camp Fire and the Marshall, CO wildfire can be used to educate people how wildfires can evolve. We also discuss how California has heavily focused on wildfire from a codes & policy perspective, but we've still got more work to do.

Our second edition of the 'On the Radar' podcast series focuses on the early insights IBHS and the fire communities have gained on the devastating Lahaina wildfires. Our experts break down how a grassland fire evolved into suburban conflagration that destroyed nearly 2,700 structures and how the building components and vegetative landscape likely contributed to the rapid progression of this fire throughout the community. We'll also discuss the importance of holistic mitigation approaches and the benefits of not only parcel mitigation, but community-level mitigation. Resilience to wildfire requires efforts from multiple agencies and participation on local and state-levels to ensure the safety and preparedness of communities at risk to wildfire.

With the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season well underway, Dr. Phil Klotzbach, Senior Research Scientist with the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University, joins us to explain the importance of seasonal hurricane forecasting.

We begin with a history lesson, including the contributions and legacy of legendary CSU professor William Gray. Additional topics we discuss include: the process of predicting how busy a hurricane season will be, climate change's impact on hurricane predictions, what seasonal forecasting can and cannot do, and misconceptions about Phil's work. He also tells us how seasonal forecasting informs the insurance industry.