Standing up to storms

When a windstorm sweeps into a building, it doesn't just push it. The air rushing over the roof creates a suction that can pull the home apart. What's more, pressures can rapidly cycle between pushing and pulling -- which can weaken components in a home the same way the tab on a soda can weakens when it's flicked back and forth.

The wind can also reach horizontally under the edge of the roof, ripping off rows of shingles. If a garage gives out, the pressure rushes in and can explode a house from the inside.

A trade group for building insurers has meticulously measured these pressures, searching for lessons. In the process, the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety has come up with a list of construction recommendations -- which it calls its Fortified program -- that can dramatically reduce the damage a home or commercial building suffers in a storm.

But while the standards have been embraced by many coastal states, where wind damage is common, Texas has lagged far behind. Out of the more than 50,000 homeowners whose homes have been built using the insurance institute's research, less than 50 are in Texas.

Over seven million people, or a quarter of the state's total population, live along the hurricane-prone Gulf Coast, according to state comptroller data, while Tornado Alley encompasses the northern part of the state.

Texas legislators have fallen behind those in some other storm-prone states, including Alabama and Louisiana, in setting up policies that would incentivize building features that could save homes during a storm. A handful of states have enacted or are considering legislation that would provide grants to fortify homes, as well as require insurance companies to provide discounted premiums for Fortified homes or offer to rebuild them to higher standards if they're destroyed. But in Texas, that decision is left up to individual homebuilders, contractors and owners, many of whom have no idea that small investments could save their homes down the line.

Nails make difference

The Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety is the sister organization of the group of vehicle insurers that famously crash tests cars, which has contributed to strides in automobile safety over the years. IBHS essentially crash tests entire buildings.

In South Carolina, it has built an enormous wall of 105 fans, each roughly six feet in diameter, which can create a six-story-tall wind tunnel with 130 miles-per-hour winds. Those winds can be combined with other elements, blasting blinding rains, golf-ball-sized hail or crackling orange embers at a home outfitted with sensors. Those sensors can measure not only how much pressure is exerted on each piece of the home but also how much it moves or bends.

IBHS has found that small changes to how the roof is secured can have an outsized impact on how it weathers a storm. For example, more tightly spacing the nails securing the roof deck -- the boards sitting on top of the trusses and rafters to which shingles are later attached -- can help prevent the wind from tearing it off. The same goes for using what are known as ring-shank nails or nails with ridges that make them twice as hard to pull out compared to regular nails.

Specialized roofing tape can be used to seal the seams of the roof decking boards so that even if shingles come off in the wind, rain still cannot get in. And there's a special method to cover the edge of the roof and lock down the bottom-most row of shingles so that the part of the roof most vulnerable to letting in wind and rain is secured.

"Nail it down, seal it up and lock it in," summarized Fred Malik, managing director of the Fortified program. He estimated it costs between $1,500 and $3,000 more to install a Fortified roof than a normal one. An IBHS study of a duplex -- half of which had sealed the decking with tape, the other half of which had not -- showed that sealing the roof alone could prevent $14,000 worth of damage in a storm.

'Just more resilient'

While many Texan builders have not heard of Fortified standards, Houston Habitat for Humanity is part of a global nonprofit that searches for ways to keep maintenance on homes affordable long term. On a recent Tuesday, Kevin Vargas, the nonprofit's construction manager, watched as volunteers nailed on the roof decking. He had taken IBHS' two-hour training on the Fortified technique.

"I'm planning to do it for all of our houses now," he said. "It's just more resilient."

After IBHS has verified a building meets its Fortified standards, it issues a certificate. Some insurance companies will discount their wind coverage on certified homes because of the reduced risk. There are different levels of certification, which can earn different levels of discounts. In addition to securing the roof, homeowners can upgrade or protect windows and doors to withstand impacts and pressure. And finally, the roof, walls, floor and foundation can all be connected, usually with metal ties, so that pressure on one part of the house is distributed to the rest.

A stark visual of the difference such upgrades could make was seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. The 2008 storm churned a devastating path across Galveston. In photos, entire stretches of beach showed little sign that they had once been home to oceanfront communities. Wind and water had even carried away much of the debris.

But in Beachtown, homes remained standing. The subdivision had begun construction the year Hurricanes Katrina and Rita made landfall, and the storms convinced developers that homes had to be built stronger than required by code. They landed on using IBHS' Fortified standards.

An ABC News broadcast after Ike shows a couple moving back into their Fortified home -- houseplants, vases, windows all intact -- days after the storm.

Reducing risk

Alabama moved to start incentivizing more resilient homes after a string of 360 tornadoes devastated the country during a four-day stretch in April of 2011. Alabama was particularly hard hit with 240 people killed.

It came after two decades in which tornadoes ravaged the state with increasing frequency. Insurance companies began pulling out from covering wind damage from at-risk communities in the state. Those that remained increased their premiums significantly.

"It just got to the point where insurance was almost unaffordable along the Gulf Coast," said Brian Powell, director of the Alabama Department of Insurance. "So we had to find a way to reduce the risk."

State legislators passed a series of bills that incentivized homeowners to build Fortified homes. A grant takes up to $10,000 off of the cost of installing a Fortified roof. After the roof is installed, the savings continue year after year because insurance companies are required to discount wind insurance on Fortified homes.

The reception to the legislation, he said, has been "overwhelming." Every time the state opens its portal for Fortified roof grants, the money, usually $3 to $4 million a quarter, is claimed within minutes.

"Faster than Taylor Swift sells tickets to her concerts," joked Louisiana's commissioner of insurance, Jim Donelon.

The comparison, while debatable, has something to it because the publicity surrounding the high-demand grants is a success story in itself. Some developers now build all their new communities with Fortified roofs. There are municipalities that have made the standards part of their building codes. And some homebuyers make it a point to ask if a house has a Fortified certification before making an offer.

On May 1, the state is celebrating 44,000 Fortified homes in the state of Alabama. And as home risk along the Gulf has decreased, Powell said, the number of insurance companies writing policies along the Gulf has rebounded.

Looking to the future

In Louisiana, legislators began passing laws to follow in Alabama's footsteps two years ago. This year, it's readying to launch a similar grant program.

"Laura, Ida, Delta, Zeta," said Donelon, ticking off the hurricanes that have hit the state in the past three years.

The frequency of damaging storms, he said, has led to "an ongoing crisis in our property insurance market," similar to what Alabama had faced before embracing storm-mitigating building practices. As a result, Donelon said, state legislators from across party lines have united around incentivizing Fortified standards as a way to address that.

In Texas, the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association has recommended legislation funding Fortified home construction, and Rep. J.M. Lozano, whose district lies along the coast, has put forward a bill that would give the association up to $500,000 a year to administer a "mitigation and preparedness program." His office declined to comment on the bill.

In the meantime, developers like Beachtown and Habitat for Humanity continue to lead the way. Chukuru Odetta, along with her brother and five of her children, plans to live in the Fortified house and in-law unit that Habitat is building in northeast Houston.

Her son, Principe Isenga, translated from Swahili as she summed up what was important to her when it came to construction standards: "All I want is for ... the house to be safe."

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