Report Emphasizes Value of Investing in Mitigation

Last year's weather caused more property damage -- $306 billion – than any prior year. Industry proponents of building safer, more resilient infrastructure often state the 2005 Multihazard Mitigation Council finding that each dollar spent on mitigation saves an average of four dollars. Now, more than a decade after releasing its original report, a new report by the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) titled Natural Hazard Mitigation Saves: 2017 Interim Report, reiterates the benefits of investing in mitigation.

In fact, the Mitigation Saves report pronounced that the nation resulted in a benefit of $6 for every $1 invested from mitigation grants from federal agencies, including FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), the Economic Development Administration (EDA), and Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). A second set of mitigation strategies looked at designing buildings to exceed 2015 model building codes, resulting in an overall benefit of $4 saved for every $1 invested. Broken down by specific risk, the benefits reported are:

• Wind, per FORTIFIED Home standards, 5:1

• Hurricane surge, 7:1

• Riverine flood, 4:1

• Earthquake, 4:1

• Wildland-Urban Interface codes, 4:1

Build with Strength, a coalition led of NRMCA, promotes concrete building systems through communications, project promotion, education and advocacy. It can help leverage research such as Mitigation Saves to help place more concrete.

Click here for more information on the NIBS report or contact Tien Peng at tpeng@nrmca.org or 206-913-8535.