Wind, quake studies sway building codes worldwide
While the 2004 hurricane season has put Florida's buildings and
building codes to the test, on the other side of the country a WSU
professor is trying to understand how destruction like that wrought
in Florida can be curbed.
Hurricane Charley flattened more than 12,000 homes in Florida,
according to the Associated Press. The damage from Hurricane Jeanne
alone has been estimated as high as $9 billion. The four Florida
storms have so far produced 2 million insurance claims, said the
Insurance Information Institute. That's the equivalent of one claim
for every five homes in Florida.
Few of these homes were built under the state's three-year-old
residential building code, said Dan Dolan, a WSU professor of
structural engineering. Dolan is working on a program with Ph.D.
candidate Jain Xu that simulates the structural response of
low-rise buildings, like homes, to dynamic loads of wind.
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