When Hurricane Andrew struck South Florida on Aug. 24, 1992, it became — at the time — the costliest and most damaging hurricane to ever hit the U.S. It destroyed 63,000 homes, stripping many down to their concrete foundations, and damaged 124,000 others. It left 65 people dead and spawned at least 28 tornadoes from Georgia to Mississippi. In the years since, we have come to see Andrew for what it really was: a harbinger of things to come.
Climate change has turned hurricane season into a recurring national nightmare. The intensity, frequency, and duration of North Atlantic hurricanes have increased dramatically since the 1980s. Our changing climate continues to add more fuel for hurricanes in the form of increasing ocean heat content, and the growth along our coasts has expanded the targets for these storms. Andrew’s record as America’s costliest storm has already been surpassed by six subsequent hurricanes — Katrina, Harvey, Maria, Sandy, Ida, and Irma — with doubtless more to come.
Andrew’s destruction should have been a wake-up call about the way we build our houses and brace our communities. For some, it was. Jurisdictions in South Florida quickly passed the strongest building codes in the country. In 2002, ten years after Andrew, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush enacted a statewide building code, overcoming resistance from inland counties that viewed hurricanes as a coastal concern. It proved prescient. Two years later in 2004, Hurricane Charley unleashed 100-plus mile-per-hour winds far inland across Florida. Homes built under the new codes fared far better across Florida than those built before, during what would become one of the most prolific hurricane seasons of all time for the state.
We have seen a similar story play out with other recent hurricanes up and down the Atlantic seaboard — not to mention from increasing extreme weather events in other regions, such as wildfires in the West and tornadoes in the heartland and Southeast. When disasters strike communities with strong and modern building codes, people have homes to come back to. Where codes are weak, we lose lives and livelihoods, especially in low income and minority communities. Storms tear apart the fabric of towns and can decimate local economies for years or even decades.
These disasters will get worse, and their impact farther reaching, yet most Americans remain woefully unprepared. We know how to build resilient and cost-effective structures to minimize the losses, yet only a dismal 35 percent of jurisdictions in the United States have the most current building codes in effect. There are two primary reasons. One is basic human nature: Jurisdictions don’t take threats seriously until a disaster forces their hand. We think it will never happen to us — not to my town, not to my house — until it does. If it does, it won’t be that bad — until it is that bad.
A second challenge is upfront cost. Most resiliency upgrades are affordable (hurricane straps, stronger bolts, and better shingling) but the overall package of upgrades can raise the cost of a home enough to give local leaders pause. But this concern is shortsighted, as the upfront costs are more than offset by savings on insurance, repairs, and recovery and increased real estate values in the long-term.
Homeowners and taxpayers feel these savings alike. Increasingly, residents of disaster-prone areas struggle to find homeowners insurance at all, which leaves taxpayers to foot the bill for public coverage. Taxpayers also pay dearly for disaster recovery, which is now running into the tens of billions every year. In this way, governments should view resilience expenditures — including subsidies and grants to help low-income residents — as investments rather than outlays. Studies show that for every dollar we spend on resilience, we save six dollars on recovery.
Hurricane Andrew’s intensity and its impact shocked the nation, but too few have learned its lessons — even as storm after storm has demonstrated that disaster resilience is an imperative well beyond the Gulf Coast states. By reflecting this week on Andrew’s impact, leaders in states and localities across America can look ahead and plan for the worst. Florida proved in the storm’s aftermath that stronger building codes can save lives, property, and money. We shouldn’t have to lose more lives to learn this lesson.
Craig Fugate was administrator of FEMA from 2009 – 2017 and served as an emergency manager in Florida during Hurricane Andrew.
Roy Wright, a former FEMA official, is president and CEO of the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety, an organization dedicated to disaster resilience.