美国国家公共电台 NPR No Move To Tighten Building Codes As Hurricane Season Starts In Florida（在线收听）

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Today is the first day of the Atlantic hurricane season. Many communities in Florida's Panhandle still struggle to recover from Hurricane Michael. Michael was a Category 5 hurricane with 160-mile-per-hour winds. It shredded thousands of houses in Panama City and surrounding communities. It's an area that's long had some of Florida's weakest building codes. From Panama City, NPR's Greg Allen reports.

GREG ALLEN, BYLINE: Everyone who was in Panama City when Michael hit has a story to tell, including Christina Harding.

CHRISTINA HARDING: Then we had to tie the door shut because Michael was trying to come in the house with us, which was not what we wanted. And then it was just bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.

ALLEN: After the storm, she stepped outside. She says it looked like a bomb had gone off.

HARDING: This guy right here across the road on the side street here - his house was just completely caved in on the backside. We saw these trailers coming apart across the road.

ALLEN: Harding lost some fencing and a window from flying debris, but otherwise, her house was largely OK. She expected it would be. She helped build it with Habitat for Humanity and knew how strong it was. Many others weren't as fortunate.

MARGO ANDERSON: We had 254 houses wiped off the earth in our city.

ALLEN: Margo Anderson is the mayor of Lynn Haven, a small community next door to Panama City. She says some of the old homes dating back to the city's founding came through the hurricane OK, but that wasn't the case with more recent construction.

ANDERSON: Some of the houses - as we drive around and you look - that were built in the hurricane-preventative times with the trusses that were supposed to work and the windows that weren't supposed to come out - you will see they didn't do as well.

ALLEN: Nearly 20 years ago, after Hurricane Andrew, Florida adopted a statewide construction code. That code established minimum wind speeds buildings would have to withstand. But until 2008, much of the Panhandle, including Panama City, was granted an exception to the code. Leslie Chapman-Henderson, who heads the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes, says that code exception proved costly.

LESLIE CHAPMAN-HENDERSON: If we had not had that in place for seven years, the homes that were just hit by Michael last year would've been so much stronger. But they weren't because of shortsighted policy.

ALLEN: That policy changed eventually, but wind speed standards along the Panhandle are still lower than many other parts of the state. One reason for that is that the region had never experienced a major hurricane until Michael.

One builder on the Panhandle has always gone well beyond the minimum requirements of the construction code - Habitat for Humanity.

LANCE RETTIG: So these are two new homes that we're building.

ALLEN: Lance Rettig is the executive director of Habitat for Humanity in Bay County. He says the impetus for going beyond required construction codes comes from the group's insistence on building homes habitat strong.

Habitat's construction manager in Bay County is Ross Potts.

ROSS POTTS: Our houses did really well, in part due to our hip roofs. So there was nothing for the wind to grab and rip off. The steel on the roof that - also key.

ALLEN: And there are lots of other elements making these homes hurricane-resistant - thicker plywood; screws, not nails - one every six inches, fastening windows to the walls; more go-bolts, long, threaded rods that connect the roof beams to the home's foundation; and screws, not nails, on the roof. It takes a bit more time, Rettig says, but doesn't cost that much more.

RETTIG: The difference is maybe a thousand dollars. You know, it's twice as many nails, a little bit of an upgrade in wood and go-bolts that are incrementally not that much of a difference.

ALLEN: After the last Category 5 hurricane hit Florida nearly 30 years ago, the state revamped its building code. This time, Leslie Chapman-Henderson says, there's been little movement in that direction.

CHAPMAN-HENDERSON: After Hurricane Michael, one would expect that the policy direction would be toward adopting stronger codes. We have not seen that to be the case.

ALLEN: A bill introduced earlier this year in Florida's Legislature included a directive to strengthen the state's building code. It died in committee after two hearings. Greg Allen, NPR News, Panama City, Fla.