by Thom Zaremba, shareholder at Roetzel & Andress
The collapse of the 12-story high-rise in Surfside, Florida, and the damages from three major hurricanes in 2024 have led us to ask—can we afford not to maintain the resiliency of our existing building stock as it ages? Following the Surfside collapse, Florida enacted laws mandating post-occupancy inspections of buildings at structural risk. Additionally, it required many owners to fund reserves necessary to alter or repair their structures to meet the current code.
Should this type of legislation be extended to areas prone to hurricanes and other types of natural disasters, like wildfires?
As of this writing, wildfires in California have burned 17,000 buildings and killed 27 people. Should buildings in wildfire areas be subjected to mandatory post-occupancy inspections that identify alterations and repairs that are required to mitigate the risk of burning in a wildfire?
Florida’s legislation has certainly cost building owners a lot of money. Owners in one northeastern Miami-Dade County complex reportedly face assessments as high as $400,000 each. While high, consider that losses from Florida’s 2024 hurricanes are projected to reach $113 billion, and the cost of California’s wildfires in 2025 is expected to exceed a quarter of a trillion dollars.
The toll that lost homes and businesses cause Americans—whether from hurricanes, wildfires or other natural disasters – raises a difficult question: Is it better to wait for buildings in high-risk areas to be damaged or destroyed by natural disasters before we require that they are rebuilt to current code, or, would it better and more cost-effective and safer to require periodic post-occupancy inspections to bring buildings at the most significant risk up to current code before they are damaged or destroyed by natural disasters?
Except in limited circumstances, Florida does not currently inspect or require existing buildings to make changes to meet current hurricane building code requirements. For example, the glazing used in windows and doors in exterior walls is not required to meet current hurricane glazing requirements. Likewise, California does not generally require existing buildings in wildfire zones to make many of the changes that would make exterior roofs, walls, windows and doors fire—or ignition-resistant, as required by the International Code Council’s Wildland Urban Interface Code.
Homes are often damaged or destroyed in hurricanes when flying debris breaks the glass in exterior windows and doors, allowing high winds and driving rain to enter and destroy the home. In wildfires, homes often burn when the glass in their exterior windows or doors is broken when flying embers strike them. The broken glass allows the burning embers to ignite curtains, furniture and flammables in the home, burning it from the inside.
If homes at high risk for hurricanes or wildfires were inspected and upgraded to hurricane-rated or fire-protection-rated glass in windows and doors in exterior walls, many would be spared significant damage or destruction. If existing homes built in hurricane or wildfire areas were required to upgrade roofs and exterior walls, windows and doors to meet most or all current code requirements, the toll that natural disasters take on America would likely be reduced.
Stay tuned! My next blog will look at some of the impediments to requiring post-occupancy inspections and ask the question, “If the existing building stock is upgraded to current codes, should those upgrades include the energy codes?”