Dive Brief:

• The International Standards Organization (ISO) is teaming with the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH), a nonprofit group, to raise awareness of the need for building codes matched to predictable natural threats to communities.
• ISO has an existing program that looks at the building codes in localities and grades them on what the organization calls the Building Code Effectiveness Grading Schedule (BCEGS).
• There is already plenty of data, with ISO evaluating both building codes and having enforcement in enough communities to cover 87% of the population in the U.S.

Dive Insight:

Getting together with ISO gives FLASH a partner with a quantitative report to back up the nonprofit's advocacy for adequate building standards. An example they cited of the need for their work is that Oklahoma is rated for tornadoes with winds that likely will hit 135 mph, but most communities have building codes that make 90 mph the construction standard.