Ian Renews Calls for Better Building, Flood Management
Hurricane Ian's devastating effects across southwest Florida have renewed calls for stronger building codes and resiliency measures that could allow households to better withstand natural disasters and avoid frequently uninsured damages like flooding.
[...]
Alan Rubin, a principal with Blank Rome, and member of the firm's Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Team, told Law360 that he expected Ian to spur further changes in building codes, likely starting with wealthier communities like Sanibel, an island city Ian hit particularly hard, knocking out part of the road connecting it to the mainland.
"You cannot put mobile homes in the way of floodplains, and right next to the beaches," Rubin said in an interview Monday. "It's very hard to get people to understand."
Rubin, who helped lead reconstruction efforts in Miami-Dade County after Hurricane Andrew in 1992, said the biggest difference between that storm and Ian was the amount of water Ian brought on. Andrew was more like a giant tornado, Rubin said.
"The mitigation problem is water. The risk mitigation problem is not wind," he said.
To read the full article, please click here.
"Ian Renews Calls for Better Building, Flood Management," by Eli Flesch was published in Law360 on October 4, 2022.