In late 2000, after the American Southeast had suffered through year after year of brutal weather-related beatings, the Tampa-based Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) introduced a certification pro-gram to residents of arguably the hardest-hit state, Florida. The "Fortified.. for safer living" debut marked the beginning of a national program to encourage natural disaster safety as a feature of home construction. The goal of the program is to get homeowners to demand and builders to build homes that better resist the forces of nature by establishing minimum requirements to be resistant to a given peril and an inspection program to ensure that the required features have been included in these homes. When the program was first introduced, Florida's top concern was hurricane and flooding resistance. But at a recent showcase of soon-to-be fortified homes in the Chicago suburb of Bolingbrook, Ill., Dukane Precast, Inc. of neighboring Naperville (see "Double Time," Concrete Products, September 2002, pp. 22-25) was constructing homes to withstand tornados with 130-mph peak gusts, large-sized hail, and extreme freezing temperatures. Since the development is on higher ground, flooding is not an issue for this particular job, but it is an option in the "Fortified.. for safer living" program, as is earthquake resistance. The Bolingbrook homes will be the first fortified homes in Illinois.
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