BETTER PUBLIC EDUCATION NEEDED

The World of Hurricane Protection Trade Show and Conference was well attended by contractors and manufacturers as well as the following IHPA board members: Amy Yelverton, Jeff Robinson, Tom Johnson, Frank Storms, Bill Feely, Scott Kuntz, Greg Mann, Frank Bernardo, Gary Stokes and Gene Enyart (see page 15)

IHPA’s new president, Bill Feely, presided over his first board meeting, held at the show.
• Government Affairs: Governmental Affairs Chairperson Amy Yelverton and Joe Belcher, JDB Code Services, attended the May building commission held in Ocala, FL. See below for details.
• The Governor’s Hurricane Conference: Held in Tampa, FL, the IHPA booth was manned by Ylverton, Jeff Robinson, Frank Storms and President Feely.

ROAD SHOWS

Two local Town Hall meetings organized by Hurricane Protection magazine publisher Kerri Caldwell were held this spring to broaden the range of members and locations of the IHPA. The meetings featured expert speakers on hurricane protection and related issues. The meetings concluded with a question-and-answer session over cocktails.

The first Town Hall meeting took place in Fort Myers, FL. Madden Mfg. was the sponsor. Frank Bernardo, PE, and Don Leggett, AAI, insurance expert, were the speakers.

Joe Belcher, IHPA code consultant, and Leggett spoke at the second road show in Pensacola, FL. This time the event was sponsored by Wayne Dalton. In addition to the president of the Florida Building Commission (FBC), Ed Carson, there were more than 30 contractors in attendance.

BUILDING CODES TO CHANGE?

The hurricane storm season is beginning with many new changes to how buildings will be protected. The option of designing for internal pressure was put to the test and failed. The Florida Legislature has voted to have that option for residential structures removed from the Florida Building Code.

Six months after the last of four hurricanes hammered the state, up to 75 percent of affected homeowners in the hardest-hit counties are still waiting for their homes to be repaired. Most of them can’t find anyone to do the work, while others who thought they got lucky were instead ripped off by people who took their deposit money and ran, or who stayed and did shoddy work, said building officials across the state.

So far, hundreds of people have been arrested statewide for allegedly contracting without a license, stealing the license numbers of local contractors, or taking deposits but not doing the work. In addition, dozens of licensed contractors have been cited for using their credentials to win business and then handing the jobs to unlicensed, uninsured subcontractors, building officials said.

Even before the quartet of hurricanes walloped most of Florida in August and September 2004, explosive growth had the state struggling with a shortage of building supplies and widespread fraud. The storms merely exacerbated those problems, building officials said.

INSURANCE CHANGES

The insurance industry in Florida is undergoing several changes. First, every homeowner’s policy sold in Florida will have a one-hurricane deductible for the entire season as opposed to last year’s one deductible for each named storm. Second, the citizens of Florida will have the ability to take up to a 10 percent hurricane deductible.

The use of a higher deductible should reduce the overall cost of the annual premium.

NEW HURRICANE CODES FOR MOBILE HOMES

In 1994, two years after Hurricane Andrew mowed down 99 percent of South Florida’s mobile homes, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development upped building standards for manufactured homes. The manufactured-housing industry fought the higher standards, saying that the better-built houses would be too expensive.

Today, manufactured homes cost about $4,000 more to build than homes built before 1994. In Charlotte County, Charley destroyed most of the 12,000 mobile homes there. All were built before 1994. Mobile homes built to the tougher standards fared better than older mobile homes. Unfortunately, just 16 percent of some 900,000 mobile homes in the state were built after 1994.

The home building industry also fought stricter building standards after Andrew, spending a decade and millions of dollars arguing against beefed-up codes. Ultimately, the state adopted standards on new construction in 2002 that called for homes on the coast to be able to withstand 130 mph winds (Miami-Dade, Monroe and Broward counties adopted even tougher standards for new construction). Builders are credited with convincing state legislators to allow less-stringent standards in inland counties, (HUD standards for manufactured homes also are less stringent inland.) In De Soto County, for instance, the standard is just 120 mph; in Orange County, it’s 110 mph.

Charley destroyed more than 12,000 homes and left another 19,000 homes “uninhabitable”; most were built before 2002. But Charley showed that a storm could maintain its wind force even after moving inland, making the industry’s claims that stronger standards aren’t needed inland look shortsighted.

The insurance industry, the federal government and the state of Florida are looking at what changes need to be made concerning building codes and hurricane protection. With the many changes being proposed, IHPA board members will be attending the upcoming BOAF convention in St. Petersburg, June 6 to 8, and the next Florida Building Commission meetings, which also will be held in St. Petersburg on June 27 to 29.