Are Improved Building Codes and Affordable Housing a Reality?

PULLMAN, Wash. – Washington State University research J. Daniel Dolan wants to know how society can improve building codes to minimize damages to homes from hurricanes and other natural disasters while keeping it affordable.

A professor of civil and environmental engineering, Dolan traveled to the Gulf Coast last month to try to find out. He will lecture on what he learned at 3 p.m. Thursday (Nov. 3) in the Engineering and Teaching Research Laboratory, Room 101.

Dolan is involved in writing and updating design and building codes in the United States. With the Institute for Business and Home Safety, he traveled through the Gulf Coast area to assess and quantify wind damage to homes that did not experience Katrina’s storm surge. With collected data on area wind speeds, the researchers examined whether homes were built to building codes and how they withstood the hurricane. Their results will help determine recommendations for improving building codes.

Dolan has worked on projects funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, U.S. Department of Agriculture and National Science Foundation that are directed at reducing losses to low-rise construction during hurricanes and other high-wind events or earthquakes.