U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

81–723PDF 2013

FEDERAL EFFORTS TO REDUCE 

THE IMPACTS OF WINDSTORMS 

JOINT HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH & 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND 

TECHNOLOGY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 2013 

Serial No. 113–34 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

RALPH M. HALL, Texas 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia 

STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming 

DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

RANDY WEBER, Texas 

CHRIS STEWART, Utah 

VACANCY 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

ERIC SWALWELL, California 

DAN MAFFEI, New York 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

JOSEPH KENNEDY III, Massachusetts 

SCOTT PETERS, California 

DEREK KILMER, Washington 

AMI BERA, California 

ELIZABETH ESTY, Connecticut 

MARC VEASEY, Texas 

JULIA BROWNLEY, California 

MARK TAKANO, California 

ROBIN KELLY, Illinois 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH

HON. LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana, Chair 

STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

AMI BERA, California 

ELIZABETH ESTY, Connecticut 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY

HON. THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky, Chair 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida 

SCOTT PETERS, California 

DEREK KILMER, Washington 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Wednesday, June 5, 2013 

Page 

Witness List ............................................................................................................. 2 

Hearing Charter ...................................................................................................... 3 

Opening Statements 

Statement by Representative Larry Bucshon, Chairman, Subcommittee on 

Research, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of 

Representatives .................................................................................................... 6 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 6 

Statement by Representative Randy Neugebauer, Committee on Science, 

Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives .................................... 7 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 8 

Statement by Representative Frederica Wilson, Minority Ranking Member 

on Technology, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House 

of Representatives ................................................................................................ 9 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 10 

Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives .... 11 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 12 

Witnesses: 

Dr. Ernst Kiesling, Research Faculty, National Wind Institute, Texas Tech 

University 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 13 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 16 

Ms. Debra Ballen, General Counsel and Senior Vice President, Public Policy, 

Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 29 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 31 

Dr. David Prevatt, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Coastal 

Engineering, University of Florida 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 38 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 40 

Discussion ................................................................................................................. 52 

Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions 

Dr. Ernst Kiesling, Research Faculty, National Wind Institute, Texas Tech 

University ............................................................................................................. 64 

Ms. Debra Ballen, General Counsel and Senior Vice President, Public Policy, 

Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety .............................................. 70 

Dr. David Prevatt, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Coastal 

Engineering, University of Florida ..................................................................... 75 
Page

IV 

Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record 

Submitted statement by Representative Daniel Lipinski, Ranking Minority 

Member, Subcommittee on Research, Committee on Science, Space, and 

Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ....................................................... 82 
(1) 

FEDERAL EFFORTS TO REDUCE 

THE IMPACTS OF WINDSTORMS 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 2013 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH & 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY, 

Washington, D.C. 

The Subcommittees met, pursuant to call, at 10:03 a.m., in Room 

2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Larry Bucshon 

[Chairman of the Subcommittee on Research] presiding. 
2 
3 
4 
5 
6 

Chairman BUCSHON. Good morning, everyone. This joint hearing 

of the Subcommittee on Research and the Subcommittee on Technology will come to order. 

Good morning, and welcome to today’s joint hearing entitled 

‘‘Federal Efforts to Reduce the Impacts of Windstorms.’’ In front of 

you are packets containing the written testimony, biographies and 

Truth in Testimony disclosures for today’s witnesses. 

Before we get started, since this is a joint hearing involving two 

Subcommittees, I want to explain how we will operate procedurally 

so all Members understand how the question-and-answer session 

period will be handled. The Chairmen and Ranking Members of the 

Research and Technology Subcommittees will be recognized first. 

Then we will recognize Members of the two Subcommittees present 

at the gavel in order of seniority on the full Committee, and those 

coming in after the gavel will be recognized in order of their arrival. I now recognize myself for five minutes for an opening statement. 

Today’s hearing will focus on how we can reduce the impacts of 

debilitating storms on our communities across the country. Even 

with improved forecasting capabilities and awareness, these storms 

can be unexpected and leave a trail of destruction in their paths. 

In addition to literally destroying lives, these windstorms shut 

down entire economies of a region during the time it takes to rebuild. Structures, while more resilient that they used to be, are 

still often not built to sustain high winds or storm damage that 

may follow these storms. Building codes, practices and performance 

standards can help, but oftentimes retrofitting an existing building 

is simply too costly given the relatively small risk of a direct hit 

of a windstorm. 

Federal agencies currently conduct research and development to 

help inform the resilience of buildings and communities, but it is 

not clear how each agency is conducting unique work that is not 

duplicated by another agency. I believe that a coordinated mechanism would help shed light into what is going on at the Federal 

level, and how it can be strengthened to ensure better coordination. 

Every year the Federal Government funds not only disaster relief 

but also billions of dollars in emergency supplemental appropriations when states are hit particularly hard by unexpected disasters. 

I believe that we need to be more responsible about planning how 

to deal with natural disasters. I am curious to hear from our witnesses if they believe better research could cut down on the dollar 

figure. 

Since the time that my colleague, Representative Neugebauer, 

introduced his windstorm research bill in late April, several Midwestern states have endured significant damage and loss of lives 

from powerful tornadoes. I would now like to yield to Representative Neugebauer for him to share some background on that legislation. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bucshon follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH CHAIRMAN LARRY BUCSHON

Good morning, I would like to welcome everyone to our hearing. 

Today’s hearing will focus on how we can reduce the impacts of debilitating 

storms on our communities across the country. Even with improved forecasting ca-
7 

pabilities and awareness, these storms can be unexpected and leave a trail of destruction in their paths. 

In addition to literally destroying lives, these windstorms shut down entire economies of a region during the time it takes to rebuild. Structures, while more resilient 

that they used to be, are still often not build to sustain high winds or the storm 

surge that may follow these storms. Building codes, practices, and performance 

standards can help, but oftentimes retrofitting an existing building is simply too 

costly given the relatively small risk of a direct hit of a windstorm. 

Federal agencies currently conduct research and development to help inform the 

resilience of buildings and communities, but it is not clear how each agency is conducting unique work that is not duplicated by another agency. I believe that a coordination mechanism would help shed light into what is going on at the federal 

level, and how it can be strengthened to ensure better coordination. 

Every year the federal government funds not only disaster relief but also emergency supplemental appropriations when states are hit particularly hard by unexpected disasters. I believe that we need to be more responsible about planning how 

to deal with natural disasters and minimize the need for disaster supplemental 

funding. I am curious to hear from our witnesses if they believe better research 

could cut down on that dollar figure. 

Since the time that my colleague Representative Neugebauer introduced his windstorm research bill in late April, several Midwestern states have endured significant 

damage and loss of lives from powerful tornadoes. I would not like to yield to him 

to share some background on that legislation. 

We have a panel of witnesses before us who can articulate what it will take to 

cut down on the economic impacts and lives lost from these storms. I would like 

to extend my appreciation to each of our witnesses for taking the time and effort 

to appear before us today. We look forward to your testimony. 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate 

you holding this important hearing today, and you know, one of the 

things that we know about wind, particularly in West Texas, where 

I am from, wind can be your friend or it can be your foe, and out 

in West Texas right now, my congressional district, for example, 

probably has the largest concentration of wind production for electricity really in the world, and so that is the time when it is our 

friend, but where it can be our foe is obviously when we have seen 

these deadly tornados that have occurred in Texas and Oklahoma 

and other states recently. And over the history we have seen where 

hurricanes and windstorms and tornados have caused a tremendous amount of property damage, but more importantly, it has 

caused the loss of lives. I think it is estimated that every year 

there is about 80 deaths and 1,500 injuries. I think in 2011, there 

were 551 fatalities. It was not particularly a good year, and unfortunately, we are kind of off to a rough start this year. 

And so what makes sense is to take research and technology and 

figure out ways to incorporate into our construction techniques a 

way to protect both the people that habitate those facilities but also 

to protect and mitigate the damage. As the Chairman mentioned, 

you know, it causes billions of dollars worth of damage, and if we 

can mitigate that, it obviously saves that money for not only the 

taxpayers but for the people that own those properties. 

I am particularly delighted with the esteemed, great panel that 

we have today, and particularly my good friend for a long time, 

from Texas Tech, Dr. Kiesling, and for his pioneering work on, you 

know, the mitigation of wind. 

So with that, the reason that I introduced in 2004 the National 

Windstorm Impact Reduction Act basically to try to coordinate all 

of the research that is going on and make sure that—one of the 

things that I feel very strongly about is that it is one thing to do 

the research but then we have to commercialize and use that re-
8 

search, and I think one of the things that we have seen is a lot of 

the research that had been done across the country has been able 

to be commercialized, and I am hopeful to hear more about that 

today. 

But NWIRP basically does another thing too that I think is important, and that is to make sure that we are efficiently using the 

taxpayers’ money and coordinating this. So many times we have 

seen in all agencies everybody kind of has their turf, and since the 

wind issue has a lot of different parts to it, it makes sense to make 

sure that there is coordination going on among the various participants that are involved in that. So this bill, I think, is going to help 

protect lives, I think it is going to reduce property losses but, more 

importantly, it also makes sure that there is good coordination so 

that when we do come up with good ideas, that we can make sure 

that we commercialize them and that we can utilize that information in the future. 

So Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for having this important 

hearing, and I look forward to hearing from these witnesses. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Neugebauer follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE RANDY NEUGEBAUER

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing today on federal efforts to reduce the impacts of windstorms. This is an extremely important topic, particularly 

in light of the devastating tornado that tore through Moore, Oklahoma. According 

to the National Weather Service, that tornado was the widest ever recorded and one 

of the strongest. I’m looking forward to hearing testimony from today’s witnesses 

about federal research and development priorities in relation to tornadoes and other 

windstorms. 

In particular, I’d like to welcome Dr. Ernst Kiesling from the National Wind Institute at Texas Tech University. As a fellow Red Raider myself, I have seen firsthand 

the tremendous research that Dr. Kiesling and his colleagues are pursuing that will 

continue to help saves lives and reduce property damage from windstorms. 

Windstorms can be devastating: every year, there are about 80 deaths and 1,500 

injuries from tornadoes. Two Thousand Eleven was an especially bad year, with 551 

fatalities caused by tornadoes alone. The property destruction is also devastating. 

When a family loses their home in a windstorm, they don’t just have to rebuild their 

house—they have to rebuild their lives. 

That’s why the research like that being done at the Texas Tech National Wind 

Institute and elsewhere is so critical. It is helping us better understand the mechanics of windstorms, and teaching us how to build stronger, safer shelters. 

The National Science and Technology Council has stated that America’s primary 

focus on disaster response is ‘‘an impractical and inefficient strategy for dealing 

with these ongoing threats. Instead, communities must break the cycle of destruction and recovery by enhancing their disaster resilience.’’ This bill would help ensure that the federal government is adequately addressing disaster resilience and 

mitigation, which is critical to reducing the costs of disasters to taxpayers. 

I first authored the bill that created NWIRP back in 2004. NWIRP helps to improve building codes, voluntary standards, and construction practices for buildings 

and homes. It also supports basic research to better understand windstorms, atmospheric science research and data collection, and the development of risk assessment 

tools and mitigation techniques. Since 2008 when the original authorization expired, 

NIST, NSF, NOAA, and FEMA have been conducting related activities, but have 

had no direction from Congress on the actual NWIRP program or what specific research it should be conducting. 

My bill, H.R. 1786, is first and foremost a bill that ensures smart and efficient 

use of taxpayer dollars. It reauthorizes and improves NWIRP by clarifying research 

priorities, enhancing coordination between these agencies, and establishing stronger 

reporting criteria. The bill makes NIST the lead agency. This will lead to a clearer 

mission for the program and ensure proper accountability to taxpayers. It will also 

prevent duplicative research across the agencies. It also creates a National Advisory 

Committee on windstorm impact reduction, made up of unpaid, non-federal em-
9 

ployee experts to offer recommendations on the program and its priorities. This ensures that industry and scientific recommendations are taken into account when 

guiding the direction of NWIRP, leading to a leaner and more effective program. 

Lastly, it creates an Interagency Coordination Committee, chaired by the Director 

of NIST, to develop a strategic plan, coordinate budgets, and report on the progress 

of the program. This will help Congress keep better track of NWIRP and guarantee 

transparency and wise use of taxpayer dollars. 

I’m looking forward to the testimony today and hope that the Committee will take 

up and pass H.R. 1786 as soon as possible. Thank you Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman BUCSHON. Thank you. We have a panel of witnesses 

before us who can articulate what it will take to cut down on the 

economic impact and lives lost from these storms. I would like to 

extend my appreciation to each of the witnesses for taking the time 

and effort to appear before us today. We look forward to your testimony. 

I now recognize Ms. Wilson for her opening statement. 

Ms. WILSON. Thank you, Chairman Bucshon and Chairman 

Massie, for holding today’s hearing on the National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program-or NWIRP. I would also like to recognize 

our Ranking Member from the entire Committee, Ms. Johnson, to 

our Committee meeting today. 

NWIRP directs four Federal agencies—FEMA, NOAA, NSF and 

NIST—to conduct coordinated research and development on the nature of windstorms, their effects, and on ways to mitigate their impact. The program also calls on these agencies to make sure this 

research is translated into practice. This work has led to advances 

in monitoring the design and construction of buildings, and increased awareness and preparation by the public. But there is still 

much more to be done. 

Regrettably, consideration of this program is timely as our 

thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Moore, Oklahoma, 

who are putting the pieces back together after a massive tornado 

ripped through their community just two weeks ago. As a Floridian 

and a survivor of Hurricane Andrew, I know firsthand that natural 

hazards are a leading threat to America’s economy and Americans’ 

lives. 

In recent years, Americans have seen flooded subway stations in 

New York City, earthquake damage in the Nation’s Capital, the 

great American city of New Orleans submerged under water, unimaginable devastation in Joplin, Missouri, and now entire neighborhoods in Oklahoma flattened to the ground. 

There has, in fact, been a record number of declared Federal disasters in the United States over the last two years, and 2011 was 

the deadliest year on record for tornadoes with over 550 fatalities. 

While we cannot stop a hurricane or tornado from happening, we 

should do all that we can to make sure our communities have the 

tools they need to respond and recover from such an event. We as 

a Nation must invest in preparedness and resilience. Studies of 

FEMA’s pre-disaster mitigation program have shown that for every 

dollar we invest in mitigation activities, we save $3 to $4 in recovery costs. 

NWIRP has the potential to dramatically bolster the resiliency of 

our communities and reduce the costs associated with disaster recovery. Unfortunately, experts have expressed concern that insufficient funding has negatively impacted the implementation of the 
10 

program and we are missing out on low-cost mitigation opportunities. 

Because of this, I do have some concerns with the legislation we 

are considering today. First, the bill cuts the authorization level for 

the program by 14 percent. Second, it locks in this lower funding 

level for the duration of the bill. We don’t have any reason to believe the agencies need any less money to carry out the responsibilities we assigned them the last time we authorized this program. 

And when we consider the devastating losses that have plagued 

the United States recently, this course of action seems irresponsible. That is why I reintroduced the bipartisan version of the Natural Hazards Risk Reduction Act, which will provide the program 

with an authorization level more appropriate to the task. This legislation passed the House by an overwhelming margin in the 111th 

Congress, and it also reauthorizes the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program. While they are differences between hazards, there are also commonalities and occasions where we should 

leverage resources. 

This Committee has an important role to play in helping Americans prepare for and recover from all natural hazards. By reauthorizing both of these programs, we can minimize the number of 

Americans who are harmed or killed by natural disasters or who 

have to face the challenge of putting their homes, businesses and 

communities back together. 

I look forward to working with my colleagues to make our communities more disaster resilient. 

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing, and 

thank you to the witnesses for being here today. I yield back the 

balance of my time. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Wilson follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY

RANKING MEMBER FREDERICA WILSON

Thank you, Chairman Bucshon and Chairman Massie for holding today’s hearing 

on the National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program—or N-WIRP [N- werp]. 

N-WIRP directs four federal agencies—FEMA, NOAA, NSF, and NIST—to conduct coordinated research and development on the nature of windstorms, their effects, and on ways to mitigate their impact. The program also calls on these agencies to make sure this research is translated into practice. This work has led to advances in monitoring, the design and construction of buildings, and increased awareness and preparation by the public. But there is still much more to be 

done.Regrettably, consideration of this program is timely as our thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Moore, Oklahoma, who are putting the pieces back together after a massive tornado ripped through their community just two weeks ago. 

As a Floridian and a survivor of Hurricane Andrew, I know firsthand that natural 

hazards are a leading threat to America’s economy and American lives. In recent 

years, Americans have seen flooded subway stations in New York City, earthquake 

damage in the Nation’s Capital, the great American city of New Orleans submerged 

under water, unimaginable devastation in Joplin, Missouri, and now entire neighborhoods in Oklahoma flattened to the ground. 

There has, in fact, been a record number of declared federal disasters in the 

United States over the last two years, and 2011 was the deadliest year on record 

for tornadoes with over 550 fatalities. 

While we cannot stop a hurricane or tornado from happening, we should do all 

that we can to make sure our communities have the tools they need to respond and 

recover from such an event. 
11 

We as a nation must invest in preparedness and resilience. Studies of FEMA’s 

pre-disaster mitigation program have shown that for every dollar we invest in mitigation activities, we save $3 to $4 dollars in recovery costs. 

N-WIRP has the potential to dramatically bolster the resiliency of our communities and reduce the costs associated with disaster recovery.Unfortunately, experts 

have expressed concern that insufficient funding has negatively impacted the implementation of the program and we are missing out on low-cost mitigation opportunities. 

Because of this I do have some concerns with the legislation we are considering 

today. First, the bill cuts the authorization level for the program by 14 percent. Second, it ‘‘locks in’’ this lower funding level for the duration of the bill. We don’t have 

any reason to believe the agencies need any less money to carry out the responsibilities we assigned them the last time we reauthorized this program. And when we 

consider the devastating losses that have plagued the United States recently, this 

course of action seems irresponsible. 

That is why I reintroduced the bipartisan version of the Natural Hazards Risk 

Reduction Act, which will provide the program with an authorization level more appropriate to the task. This legislation passed the House by an overwhelming margin 

in the 111th Congress and it also reauthorizes the National Earthquake Hazards 

Reduction Program. While they are differences between hazards there are also commonalities and occasions where we should leverage resources. 

This Committee has an important role to play in helping Americans prepare for 

and recover from all natural hazards. By reauthorizing both of these programs, we 

can minimize the number of Americans who are harmed or killed by natural disasters or who have to face the challenge of putting their homes, businesses, and communities back together. 

I look forward to working with my colleagues to make our communities more disaster resilient. 

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. And thank you to the 

witnesses for being here. I yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairman BUCSHON. Thank you, Ms. Wilson. The Chair now recognizes the Ranking Member of the Full Committee, Ms. Johnson, 

for an opening statement. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much, Chairman Bucshon, for 

holding today’s hearing to examine the National Windstorm Impact 

Reduction Program. 

The last few years have been devastating years for natural disasters in this country. We experienced the deadliest and most destructive tornado season in U.S. history in 2011. Unfortunately, the 

trend continues this year with massive tornadoes in Oklahoma and 

in my home State of Texas. We have also had earthquakes in areas 

that don’t usually experience earthquakes, including Virginia and 

Oklahoma. And Hurricanes Sandy and Irene caused widespread destruction and death along the Eastern seaboard. 

This Committee has an important role to play in minimizing the 

number of Americans who are harmed or killed by natural disasters or who have to face the challenge of rebuilding their homes, 

businesses and communities. 

By reauthorizing the National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program, we can reduce the vulnerability of our communities to disasters. Therefore, I am glad my fellow Texan, Congressman 

Neugebauer, been a champion for NWIRP and that he introduced 

legislation to reauthorize this important program. 

However, I want to express my support for the legislation recently introduced by Congresswoman Wilson, of which I am a cosponsor. The National Hazards Risk Reduction Act of 2013 would 

reauthorize both the wind-related program and the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program. I believe we need to take a 

multi-hazards approach to disaster mitigation, and Ms. Wilson’s 
12 

legislation would link these two critical programs through the establishment of a single interagency coordinating committee, creating opportunities for synergy among the various research activities. 

I also don’t believe we should prioritize one hazard program over 

another as they are all important to producing communities that 

are resilient to any and all disasters. As a result, I hope that as 

we move forward with legislation we consider all of the hazard programs within the Committee’s jurisdiction. 

And finally, it is clear that NWIRP agencies have not gotten the 

resources they need to carry out all of the responsibilities assigned 

to them by Congress. Thus, I am concerned by the cuts proposed 

in the legislation that is the topic of today’s hearing. We simply 

can’t afford to have these agencies miss opportunities to implement 

low-cost mitigation measures. In the end, strong and effective hazard reduction programs will not only save lives and property, but 

also provide us with meaningful cost savings. 

Thank you, Chairman Bucshon, and I yield back the balance of 

my time. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE AND TECHNOLOGY

RANKING MEMBER EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON

Thank you, Chairman Buschon for holding today’s hearing to examine the National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program—or NWIRP. 

The last few years have been devastating years for natural disasters in this country. We experienced the deadliest and most destructive tornado season in U.S. history in 2011. Unfortunately, the trend is continuing this year with massive tornadoes in Oklahoma and in my state of Texas. We’ve also had earthquakes in areas 

that don’t usually experience earthquakes, including Virginia and Oklahoma. And, 

Hurricanes Sandy and Irene caused widespread destruction and death along the 

Eastern seaboard. 

This Committee has an important role to play in minimizing the number of Americans who are harmed or killed by natural disasters or who have to face the challenge of rebuilding their homes, businesses, and communities. 

By reauthorizing the National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program, we can reduce the vulnerability of our communities to disasters. Therefore, I am glad my fellow Texan, Congressman Neugebaurer, has been a champion for NWIRP and that 

he introduced legislation to reauthorize this important program. 

However, I want to express my support for the legislation recently introduced by 

Congresswoman Wilson, of which I am a co-sponsor. The National Hazards Risk Reduction Act of 2013 would reauthorize both the wind-related program and the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program. 

I believe we need to take a multi-hazards approach to disaster mitigation, and 

Ms. Wilson’s legislation would link these two critical programs through the establishment of a single interagency coordinating committee—creating opportunities for 

synergy among the various research activities. 

I also don’t believe we should prioritize one hazard program over another as they 

are all important to producing communities that are resilient to any and all disasters. As a result, I hope that as we move forward with legislation we consider all 

of the hazard programs within the Committee’s jurisdiction. 

And finally, it is clear that the NWIRP agencies have not gotten the resources 

they need to carry out all of the responsibilities assigned to them by Congress. Thus, 

I am concerned by the cuts proposed in the legislation that is the topic of today’s 

hearing. We simply can’t afford to have these agencies miss opportunities to implement low-cost mitigation measures. In the end, strong and effective hazard reduction programs will not only save lives and property, but also provide us with meaningful cost savings. 

Chairman BUCSHON. Thank you, Ms. Johnson. 
13 

If there are Members who wish to submit additional opening 

statements, your statements will be added to the record at this 

point. 

Chairman BUCSHON. Now I would like to introduce the witnesses. Our first witness is Dr. Ernst Kiesling, a Professor of Civil 

Engineering at Texas Tech University and Executive Director of 

the National Storm Shelter Association. He has had a long career 

with Texas Tech University, serving as Chairman of the Civil Engineering Department and as an Associate Dean of Engineering for 

Research. He leads the storm shelter research effort within the 

Wind, Science and Engineering Research Center at Texas Tech. Dr. 

Kiesling received his M.S. in mechanical engineering from Texas 

Technological College and an M.S. and Ph.D. in applied mathematics from Michigan State University. Welcome. 

Our second witness is Debra Ballen—did I pronounce that right? 

Ms. BALLEN. Ballen. 

Chairman BUCSHON. Ballen, the General Counsel and Senior 

Vice President for Public Policy for the Insurance Institute for 

Business and Home Safety. Ms. Ballen has also worked with the 

American Insurance Association and the University of Colorado’s 

Advisory Committee for the Hazards Center. She graduated with 

a J.D. from Harvard Law and an A.B. degree from Princeton University. Thank you. 

Our final witness is Dr. David Prevatt, an Assistant Professor at 

the University of Florida. He has been with the University of Florida’s Department of Civil and Coastal Engineering since 2007. His 

research focuses on the mitigation of extreme wind damage to lowrise construction. Dr. Prevatt is a member of the American Society 

of Civil Engineers, on the board of the American Association for 

Wind Engineering, and a member of the U.K. Wind Engineering 

Society. Dr. Prevatt received his Ph.D. from Clemson University. 

Welcome. 

As our witnesses should know, spoken testimony is limited to 

five minutes each after which Members of the Committee have five 

minutes each to ask questions. Your written testimony will be included in the record of the hearing. 

I now recognize our first witness, Dr. Kiesling, for five minutes. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. ERNST KIESLING, 

RESEARCH FACULTY, NATIONAL WIND INSTITUTE, 

TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY 

Dr. KIESLING. Thank you. Mr. Bucshon, Mr. Neugebauer and distinguished Committee Members, I thank you for the opportunity to 

be here. You have done a good job of outlining both the problem 

and potential solutions, and pointed to one of the major problems 

that we face in not only lack of funding but lack of continuity in 

funding to do the research we need to do. 

One other thing I would point out is not just the loss of lives and 

the human suffering, but the anxiety that comes with severe events 

like tornados and hurricanes. And I will speak primarily on storm 

shelters or safe rooms, because that is where I spent most of my 

career working, and secondly, I think it addresses this last problem 

of anxiety and human suffering effectively. 
14 

I have been part of the wind engineering program at Texas Tech 

since 1970 when an EF–5 tornado impacted Lubbock. I was Chairman of the Civil Engineering Department at that time. You can 

help make my day by telling me I don’t look old enough to have 

done that, but I don’t want you to lie. 

With your support, we have developed a world-class program at 

Texas Tech, unparalleled facilities—I have included a picture of 

some of in the report, a unique doctoral program in wind, science 

and engineering, and we have turned out about 20 doctoral students or graduates there, and they are taking prominent places in 

the professional community. 

Today we have very good weather forecasting that gives information on locations and paths of tornados and hurricanes but we still 

have to deal with the effects of severe winds, and even the advice 

given the public we have found in the last two weeks in Oklahoma 

leaves much to be desired. In fact, it is inaccurate and dangerous, 

some of the advice that is being given. So not only do we need to 

do the good work such as forecasting has done but need to convey 

a consistent message to the public as to how do you react, how do 

you respond to disasters. A focused approach to research and development and implementation is needed to reduce impact of windstorms on urban society. Many specific areas could be mentioned— 

testing facilities, a repository for windstorm damage documentation, and that is in process, development of computational wind engineering tools, implementation of known research into standards 

and codes, and others will speak to that, development of manpower 

to pursue meaningful research and professional practice, and then 

educational programs that convey sound, consistent guidance to the 

people as to how they react and respond to extreme events—extreme wind events. 

Property damage can surely be abated by improved building 

codes and by their enforcement. We have a tremendous problem in 

the lack of enforcement because that is done largely at the local 

level, and there are many disconnects that occur between the agencies and the researchers that generate good research and what 

happens in the field, and education, I think, is the best way to address that. 

We have particularly in the storm shelter area available standards and guidelines. We have an industry association, the National 

Storm Shelter Association, and we have a program that recognizes 

those storm shelters that comply with the standards. We have all 

types of shelters available today that meet these standards and 

guidelines and provide near-absolute occupant protection from extreme winds, yes, even an EF–5, despite some of the information 

that has been given, particularly in the last couple of weeks in 

Oklahoma. Some of the advice given has been deadly and wrong. 

There are many characteristics of the Hazard Mitigation Grant 

program, and Ms. Johnson, you mentioned that. It is an excellent 

program that does a lot of good things. The downside of it is that 

funding that is generated is post disaster so it is sometimes four 

or five years. We are just now finishing some projects that were 

funded with the Hazard Mitigation program with funding growing 

out of Hurricane Ike that occurred five years ago. So it takes time, 

and I think it is important that we have, say, pre-disaster mitiga-
15 

tion grants of some type and sizable ones that can do preparation 

for disasters, not respond to them. I don’t understand why the PreDisaster Mitigation Grant program was discontinued, and I am not 

saying that we need that but we need something like that that allows us to prepare in advance. 

There has been a lot of talk about shelters being mandatory. I 

believe that the states, such as Alabama, have set a good example, 

and that storm shelters for schools should be made mandatory by 

states that have serious problems in new buildings, and much can 

be done to improve existing buildings in that regard. I believe that 

mandatory shelters should also be for multi-family residential 

housing units, vulnerable populations such as daycare centers, retirement villages and so forth, nursing homes, mobile home parks 

and apartments. I think it should not be mandatory for privately 

owned single-family and multi-family residences—though incentives of some type would certainly be appropriate. 

So my recommended action would simply be that you have identified the agencies—NIST, FEMA, NOAA, NSF. All are experienced 

in administering large-scale programs and they work well together, 

I think. We have capable professional personnel that conduct research if they have adequate funding to do so, and I think if you 

look particularly at the programs that have been funded, the earthquake program and the prediction program in the weather area, 

you will see that we have unprecedented return on investment in 

those programs, and I would encourage Congress to make funding 

available to make similar investments in the area of mitigating the 

wind disaster. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Kiesling follows:] 
16 
17 
18 
19 
20 
21 
22 
23 
24 
25 
26 
27 
28 
29 

Chairman BUCSHON. Thank you. 

I now recognize our second witness, Ms. Ballen, for five minutes. 

TESTIMONY OF MS. DEBRA BALLEN, 

GENERAL COUNSEL AND SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, 

PUBLIC POLICY, INSURANCE INSTITUTE 

FOR BUSINESS & HOME SAFETY 

Ms. BALLEN. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My 

name is Debra Ballen. I am with the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety, a 501(c)(3) organization wholly supported 

by the property insurance and reinsurance industries and dedicated to mitigation, research and communications. 

As a research organization focusing on mitigation, IBHS has long 

been supportive of the NWIRP. We provided testimony during 

hearings that led to its initial authorization as well as the effort 

to reauthorize the program in 2008, and we have worked in partnership on a number of projects with all of the NWIRP agencies. 

We are pleased to be here today, and we thank you for your interest in this important matter. 

Given the broad geographic threat of windstorms, the percentage 

of our population at risk, the frequency of events and the tremendous toll taken, the Federal investment in wind-related research is 

much less than it should be. That said, we are not negative on a 

multi-hazard approach. A coordinated, well-funded research program as embodied in NWIRP is needed to pull together scientific 

information about wind hazards, wind engineering expertise that 

defines the connection between storm characteristics and loads imposed on buildings, structural engineering expertise that develops 

efficient systems to handle these loads in new and existing buildings, and national coordinated efforts to promote mitigation. 

We believe that IBHS can play an important role in these initiatives. The centerpiece of our research program is our unique worldclass research center. Using a 105-fan array to simulate wind as 

well as full-size residential and commercial test specimens and 

other specialized equipment, IBHS can recreate a variety of highly 

realistic natural disasters involving wind alone, wind plus rain, 

wind plus fire, and wind plus hail. 

I would like to take a moment to show you how research and related communications contribute to our understanding of the destructive power of wind and the benefits of mitigation. You will see 

the power of wind in a video from the first public demonstration 

that we conducted at the research center in the fall of 2010. We 

subjected two wood-frame houses to a highly realistic storm that 

has occurred in North Texas and the Midwest. Although they look 

the same from the outside, the home on the left was built using a 

code as it exists in Central Illinois while the home on the right was 

built to a higher IBHS standard. I should add that the winds you 

are going to see were not tornadic. So here is a very short video 

of that test. 

[Video shown.] 

You can see just how quickly and how completely the home on 

the left was destroyed, and as you think about the loss of life and 

property had this been a real event with people inside the home 

that was destroyed, you can also understand the importance of re-
30 

search as a complement to communications in order to get people 

to pay attention, change their attitudes, and ultimately demand 

safer and stronger buildings. It is much better to learn this lesson 

in the IBHS’s test chamber than from places like Moore, Oklahoma, and Miami, Florida. 

Along with stronger, safer building, we believe that mitigation 

leads to a stronger, safer insurance system. Among the insurancerelated benefits of mitigation are a reduction in the frequency and 

severity of weather-related claims, a downward shift in the loss exceedance curve, better management of losses in rare but severe 

events, more efficient capital deployment, healthier private insurance markets, and less stress on residual markets. 

The property insurance industry’s research priorities for wind 

mitigation are directly in line with policyholder interests: less physical destruction, less economic loss, less societal displacement, 

fewer injuries and deaths. Breaking the cycle of destruction so that 

residential and commercial structures do not have to be put together again and again will benefit building owners, occupants, 

communities and also insurers. 

In closing, I thank you for the opportunity to offer our comments 

on the critical role of mitigation research and the importance of 

NWIRP reauthorization. We urge you to move forward on this important legislation that will help to harness advancements in windstorm science and engineering in order to improve our Nation’s 

safety, sustainability and resilience. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Ballen follows:] 
31 
32 
33 
34 
35 
36 
37 
38 

Chairman BUCSHON. Thank you very much for your testimony. 

I now recognize our final witness, Dr. Prevatt, for five minutes. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. DAVID PREVATT, 

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF 

CIVIL AND COASTAL ENGINEERING, 

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 

Dr. PREVATT. Chairman Bucshon, Chairman Massie and honorable Subcommittee Members, my name is David Prevatt. I am here 

to advocate on behalf of the American people for the creation of 

wind hazard-resilient communities within the next ten years. I believe the reason we don’t have this already is that no one has been 

bold enough or committed enough to demand it. I wish to add the 

support of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the American Association for Wind Engineering and my own support for 

H.R. 1786. These organizations have been working for the past ten 

years since Congressman Randy Neugebauer of Texas first proposed this legislation. We also support the transfer of leadership to 

the National Institute of Standards and Technology. 

Since Professor Fujita first published his Fujita Scale in 1971 

and his report on the Lubbock tornado, our populations in the Tornado Alley has grown 50 percent. What does that mean? We have 

more schools, we have more hospitals, commercial spaces and certainly a lot more houses. It is not complicated. There are today 

more objects in harm’s way than there were before. Also, since the 

1970s as well, NOAA and the National Severe Storms Laboratory 

has invested heavily in weather infrastructure, over $167 million 

over the last ten years, in better research to predict unstable 

weather, in providing warnings of tornados, in more equipment, 

forecasting products. The public is aware of this and confident in 

its use, and private sector has stepped up to mine it. We can get 

forecasting information on our smartphones. 

It is not complicated: longer lead times before tornado strikes reduce loss of life. In parallel, the 1970 Texas Tech University’s wind 

engineering faculty, they initiated the first building damage studies 

after the Lubbock tornado, documented problems with houses, how 

they are made. Modern houses still have those problems. Houses 

have smaller nails, fewer nails than they once were in the 1940s. 

Connections are inadequate. They cannot resist tornado loads. 

Houses are insufficiently anchored to the foundations and they rock 

very easily. There are no vertical load paths in the houses built in 

Tornado Alley, and I can attest. I was there in Moore, Oklahoma, 

two weeks ago. 

It is not complicated. The result is more houses, more poorly 

built houses, and more property loss and disruption of our communities. Tornados now, damage has increased two and a half times 

since the 1970 Lubbock tornado. 

So my message today is not complicated. It is simply to tell our 

representatives that the people of the United States want to live 

in tornado-resilient communities. They also deserve to live there 

without fear. A tornado-resilient community is one where all 

schools have shelters or at least safer spaces that afford some protection to our children; that our hospitals and emergency buildings 

are all hardened against tornados, wind hazards and earthquakes; 
39 

that our houses are built so that fewer will be completely destroyed, destroying the lives and some will be repairable after a 

tornado, civil infrastructure are designed for tornados and that the 

private sector has the research backing to work to economically develop affordable and weather-resilient houses. Really, it is not complicated. 

The wind engineering and structural engineering communities 

stand ready to begin this work. We have been ready for ten years. 

And with your support, we can begin this task to provide for our 

people. To get there, please support H.R. 1786, authorize its funding and sustain support for the wind engineering and structural 

engineering communities for our houses. 

Let us mobilize community leaders to upgrade their building 

codes and include vertical load path provisions in all buildings, in 

all buildings. Support our research community to work with innovative private-sector companies to design buildings and build resilient and sustainable 21st-century houses. It can be done. Advance 

the wind and structural engineering research program, support 

your faculty that would provide these solutions to these existing 

problems. 

Honorable Members, it really isn’t complicated. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Prevatt follows:] 
40 
41 
42 
43 
44 
45 
46 
47 
48 
49 
50 
51 
52 

Chairman BUCSHON. Thank you very much. I want to thank all 

the witnesses for your testimony. It is a fascinating subject. I want 

to remind the Members that the Committee rules limit questioning 

to five minutes. The Chair will at this point open the round of 

questions. I recognize myself for five minutes. 

Ms. Ballen and Dr. Prevatt, initially, what are the stepping 

stones that are preventing us from building better homes? I mean, 

what is the rate limiting steps? Why, even with all the information 

we have out there, why don’t we do it? 

Ms. BALLEN. Well, we have actually developed a strategic plan 

at IBHS that I think responds to your question, and that is, first 

we need to get people to pay attention. We have the research capabilities. These fine universities, work that groups like ours have 

done, provide the technical answers but we need people to understand them, and the video that you saw I think as an example of 

getting people to pay attention. That video has actually been on the 

Today show, it has been on the Weather Channel. People have seen 

that and begun to think about ‘‘gee, how do I make that not happen?’’ So the next step is getting them to change their minds and 

getting them to value that stronger roof instead of a granite 

countertop, and once individuals are making those choices, we as 

a society need to rise up and really demand, demand to be in a 

community with a better building code or demand, you know, that 

Congress, you know, enacts these types of legislation. I think a lot 

of people just don’t—they haven’t gotten that first step so they 

can’t get to the second step and the third step, and that is at least, 

you know, perspective on that. Dr. Prevatt? 

Dr. PREVATT. What I would add to that is, we still lack the 

knowledge of designing buildings for tornados. There has been a 

dearth of research in wind engineering that supported the faculty 

working on wind engineering matters. We had the zenith in the 

1980s and since that time there just has not been the research 

there. Currently, we are trying to understand how the tornado 

loads interact on a particular building, how the load paths have to 

be improved in order to do that. So part of the problem is not only 

do people need to be initiated to want to change, we have to provide an opportunity and knowledge of how they can change. 

Chairman BUCSHON. Thank you. I can tell you, I was in health 

care before, and there is a powerful motivating factor for people 

and it is called denial, and it is a very difficult thing to overcome 

when people see what is the statistical chance of their home being 

hit and convincing them that they need to have that home built 

with higher standards. It is very, very difficult thing to overcome 

as well as messaging why that is the case. 

Dr. Kiesling, this is my own personal question. Has there been 

any—is there research out there on not only telling us where tornados are and where they are going but how to divert them away 

from urban centers? 

Dr. KIESLING. I think the first part of that question, the answer 

is yes. Certainly, the people are doing an excellent job of predicting 

the path and where the tornados are. I don’t see any hope of diverting, though we occasionally hear from people who have proposals 

for that. In the first place, we don’t know where they are going to 

occur far enough in advance, and secondly, there is a tremendous 
53 

amount of energy there that has to be dealt with in trying to divert 

them, so I frankly, personally do not have much hope for that. 

Chairman BUCSHON. Or dissipate them, for example, and dissipate the energy or anything like that? 

Dr. KIESLING. Hopefully it can work. I have to depend on, I 

guess, the next generation to come up with solutions there because 

I simply do not see how we can dissipate or divert tornados. 

Chairman BUCSHON. Okay. Is there a—describe the difference in 

research between straight-line winds and tornadic winds. Is there 

a big difference there? 

Dr. KIESLING. Well, straight-line winds generally, we know what 

pressures they exert on buildings and they are pretty predictable, 

but in a tornado or hurricane, the variations are great and I think 

we need to know a lot more about not only the intensity but the 

variation and the characteristics of extreme winds so that we can 

better deal with them. We are making progress, but again, it is a 

long, slow process and requires manpower that is hard to come by. 

Chairman BUCSHON. Do you have a comment, Doctor? 

Dr. PREVATT. I would add that in tornados as well, we have 

something that we don’t understand, which is vertical suction 

below the vortex, and that has never been, you know, understood 

in terms of how it reacts or interacts with the winds that are ensuing into the tornado. 

Chairman BUCSHON. Thank you very much. My time is about to 

expire so I will now recognize Ms. Wilson for her line of questioning. 

Ms. WILSON. Thank you. In her testimony, Ms. Ballen states that 

wind hazard research has been underfunded for decades. The other 

witnesses also express a similar sentiment in their testimonies. All 

of you indicate that NWIRP has never been implemented in any 

meaningful way because of lack of resources. What opportunities 

are we missing by not providing the program with, as Dr. Kiesling 

puts, a reliable, sustained source of funding for maturation and expansion? 

Dr. PREVATT. I think we just have to look at the earthquake engineering program and see what benefits we have gained from that. 

We are talking about something that has been funded to the level 

of, you know, millions of dollars per year. Literally all other wind 

engineering research over the last ten years at the top wind engineering schools amounts to about $1 million per year. We are talking about, and I have seen it, Joplin, Missouri, Tuscaloosa and 

Moore, Oklahoma. We are talking about $2 billion, $3 billion and 

$5 billion. Those are the numbers, and we simply are not addressing them. What has happened over the time, unfortunately, is 

there has been attrition of wind engineering faculty. Structural engineering faculty no longer study how to make houses stronger, you 

know, commercial structures and so on, and these are the areas 

where we have the most damage, the most dollars lost and the 

most lives affected. 

Ms. BALLEN. I agree certainly with everything that Dr. Prevatt 

just said. I think our feeling is that if there were more money that 

were in this program, or money in this program, since there really 

hasn’t been money in this program. You know, we have identified 

in a broad way the areas where we think we could really lead to 
54 

progress, and the first is enhanced understanding of the events 

themselves, and different issues in terms of understanding tornados and understanding hurricanes but certainly it starts with 

the science and the meteorology of that. 

The second is understanding the connections between those 

events and the built environment. We are doing some of that at the 

IBHS research center but certainly more could be done through enhanced funding through NWIRP of universities and others. We recreate the nature and then we see how nature reacts to the built 

environment, homes and small businesses. 

The third area is identifying those mitigation measures that actually work, the tornado-proof home or even in the area of hurricanes where we know a lot more. There is still a lot more to be 

learned about how to make those structures better able to sustain 

nature. And the final thing would be making sure that the tests 

that our products and standards are based on really do accurately 

reflect the real world. What we saw in the auto safety arena was 

that everyone could build a car that withstood the first NHTSA 

tests because they knew exactly what they needed to build to, and 

that didn’t necessarily mean it was safe in the real world. And so 

we need to develop testing standards that actually do reflect what 

we learned from the first side in terms of the real-world weather 

events. 

As far as the funding levels are concerned, as you identified in 

your opening statement, you know, whatever the level is, and more 

is obviously better from the perspective, I think, of all of the panelists that are here but you also identified that the static funding is 

a problem. If the idea of the program is some of these are short- 

, some of these are medium- and some of these are long-term 

events, if you fund it sort of at the same level throughout the 

three-year period or whatever the period is, you get everything 

started and then you can’t identify anything new in the second and 

third year. So we certainly would recommend at least modest upticks as you go forward so that, you know, we can make sure that 

we can start what we finish but also start other things that are 

identified in the early years of the program. 

Ms. WILSON. Dr. Kiesling, do you have any response? 

Dr. KIESLING. Sorry. What was the question? Did you ask me if 

I needed to add anything? 

Ms. WILSON. Do you want to add anything about the lack of 

funding? 

Dr. KIESLING. I think, again, not only the level of funding but the 

continuity is a problem because particularly with young faculty because young faculty are under tremendous pressure to produce research to generate funding, to publish, and if they have areas 

where that funding is more readily available and dependable, then 

they are going to go to those areas. So it is very difficult for us to 

recruit young faculty into wind engineering, for example, because 

of the lack of continuity of funding. 

Ms. WILSON. Thank you. 

Chairman BUCSHON. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Schweikert 

for his questioning. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield to the 

sponsor of the bill, Mr. Neugebauer. 
55 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. And I appreciate the gentleman. 

You know, I think one of the things that we want to happen 

here, and it has been alluded to by the witnesses, is getting people 

to build buildings that will mitigate some of the potential damage 

and loss of life. You know, I think one of the misnomers out there 

is that you have to build Fort Knox so that the cost of building 

that, you know, is not economic because of the probability that 

event happening versus the cost of doing it, and so one of the 

things I think I am very big on is using the carrot, you know, rather than the stick. And so I have a couple of questions. One of those, 

do you see within—for example, many of these losses of property 

were insured losses, and so obviously the insurance industry has 

a huge interest, you know, in this issue. Two things. Do you see 

them recognizing a difference in homes or buildings built to different standards so that there is incentive for homeowners or people building a building to, you know, spend the extra dollars to do 

that? So that would be my first question. 

Ms. BALLEN. Let me take that one since I know a little bit about 

that issue. We look at property mitigation in two ways. One are 

building codes and one are efforts to go above building codes. Building codes, as much as we support them, are really intended for life 

safety as opposed to property protection, and so while obviously a 

code-built home is better in many ways, if the issue is property protection, I think that is not necessarily what an individual insurer 

is likely to consider the best possible. IBHS has developed a voluntary standard. It is called Fortified Home or Fortified for Safer 

Living, and does go above code. It is hazard-specific. So we try to 

identify the types of building construction techniques that will help 

for specific hazards. Again, every insurance company does make its 

own decisions but several states have recognized Fortified and requiring insurance companies to do that in their filings. So we do 

have a little bit of a track record in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina, and we are seeing that companies are in 

fact individually making decisions in terms of filing. 

That said, I want to emphasize that the types of things that are 

in Fortified are not unaffordable. They are relatively low-cost improvements that a homeowner can make. I am talking about a couple of thousand dollars generally, particularly in an area that already has a code. One of our partners in terms of Fortified for 

Safer Building is Habitat for Humanity. They are actually the largest builder in this country at this point in time, and we have 

partnered with Habitat on a number of Fortified homes in hurricane-prone areas and in other areas and so if we can get those Fortified standards into a Habitat home, you know that those are not 

unaffordable standards. It is a question of sort of being there at the 

time when decisions are being made. You know, to say to someone 

that has a roof on a home, this is not a good roof, you need to take 

off this roof and put a whole other roof on is a very expensive proposition, but if you are at the point where a homeowner is replacing 

a roof or needs to replace a roof because the first roof has blown 

off, it doesn’t cost that much more to build to a Fortified standard. 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. I think one of the things that—another theme 

of this particular legislation but I think a theme that we hear a 

number of the people up here talk about is, you know, dissemina-
56 

tion of that information and coordination of that information, and 

so, for example, this research, for example, do you sit down with, 

say, industry participants, say, the national home builders, for example, and share, you know, this information and introduce a dialog with them to make sure that they are being made aware of 

this? 

Ms. BALLEN. We certainly have started that. They started out 

rather negative and skeptical of IBHS and our capabilities and our 

mitigation messages but we have invited them all to our research 

center. They see that $40 million facility, they see that fan capability and they realize that we are very serious about doing the research and doing the communications and that has led to a much 

more constructive dialog. There are a number of organizations that 

we have had longstanding, very positive relationships with, and I 

should mention the ASCE is probably one of our strongest partners 

here in Washington and at the state level and certainly at the technical level as well. They have visited our research center. The architects are another group that we are trying to encourage young 

architects in architectural schools to incorporate stronger building 

into their curricula. So we are reaching out to a number of organizations. Our companies reach out to their policyholders. We try to 

leverage those relationships to try to get the word out into social 

media, which of course is huge in all areas and is huge after disasters. We are trying to make that part of the mitigation movement 

as well. 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Okay. I thank the gentleman for yielding. 

Chairman BUCSHON. I now recognize Ms. Johnson for her line of 

questioning, five minutes. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much. 

Just as a follow-up to the course of questioning, I can’t forget the 

image of seeing the one lone house that remained standing during 

Hurricane Ike in Galveston, only to think how did it survive out 

there alone, to find later that the entire neighborhood was devastated and that house survived, and it was because they had used 

the type of materials that would resist many winds. How do we— 

I just heard your comments from the standpoint of encouraging architects but it seems to me that local ordinances when permission 

is gotten for building has to be involved. How do we do that without making it seem that this is big government trying to boss everybody? But I should think that insurance companies should be 

very interested in having resilience in the building as well as governments. You know, with the ability of our satellite system to predict, we have gone a long way in saving lives but we haven’t done 

nearly as well in saving property, and that is a major concern in 

an economy like today. How do you see that responsibility fitting 

where and what can we do? 

Dr. KIESLING. Representative Johnson, one thing I would tell you 

about that is one building that you saw in Ike, I saw one building 

or one neighborhood in Moore, Oklahoma, that had hurricane ties, 

something that actually would hold the roof down to the wall, just 

one out of thousands and thousands that we looked at. Essentially, 

we have to do a better argument to convince individuals, as Ms. 

Ballen said, that this is something that they ought to think about 

instead of that granite countertop. Let us look back at ourselves 
57 

100 years ago, our large cities—Chicago, New York, San Francisco—we all faced fire considerations. Blocks and blocks were 

burning down. It was at that time that those city leaders, legislators, politicians and the public got together and said enough is 

enough; if Chicago is going to survive, we are going to have to, you 

know, all pull in one direction, and that is what we did. And we 

can do it again. We have the ability to do it again. I think right 

now the public is generally fearful of tornados, fearful of the wind 

hazard, and they believe we don’t have the talent to do it. I think 

if we have put a man on the moon, we could pretty much keep a 

roof on a house. 

Ms. BALLEN. I certainly agree with that statement. We are very 

strong supporters of building codes, and about a year ago, we did 

a little study. We called it ‘‘Rating the States,’’ and we looked at 

the building-code regimes from Texas to Maine in the coastal states 

on a one to one—a zero to 100 scale. The scores ranged from four 

to 95. So there was quite a range. And I will tell you that as a public communications vehicle, a lot of people may not know what a 

building code is but they know that is good to have a high score 

and it is bad to have a low score, and that really has started a dialog, and the most positive responses that we have gotten from the 

media certainly have been in those states with the low scores about 

how they can do better. One state that was not at the bottom, was 

in the middle but actually passed a bill this year—Maryland, that 

specifically addressed an issue that we had identified in those 

states. So it is a way of making building codes understandable to 

people so again they begin to demand that they want to be—we 

would say ideally in a state, we support statewide mandatory 

building codes. It is much easier for enforcement. It is much more 

consistent. But there are some states where that hasn’t happened, 

and Texas certainly is one of them. At a minimum at the local level 

there ought to be strong ordinances in effect. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Any other witness comments? Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. I yield back. 

Chairman BUCSHON. Thank you. I now recognize Mr. Lipinski for 

five minutes. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

In his testimony, Dr. Kiesling calls for economic, social and behavioral studies to understand implementation of research results 

like stronger building codes. I think this is something very important that we have to use the lessons from social science to ensure 

that the other lessons that we are learning from research get implemented. Can Dr. Kiesling and other witnesses expand upon that 

and where exactly they see the importance? 

Dr. KIESLING. I think implementation is a serious problem in 

many areas. I would back up a little bit and say that in terms of 

improved building codes, we can do a lot of good by simply meeting 

existing building codes that are not, say, effectively enforced or inspected, but if we increased the design wind load only a small 

amount, we would save a lot of property because even in a tornado, 

most of the damage is done at wind speeds, say, in the 100- to 125- 

mile-per-hour wind, and if we design for a little bit more than we 

do, 90- or 100-per-hour winds, that would save a lot of the structures that are currently being destroyed. 
58 

I don’t know what the answers are to implementation but I see 

it as a serious, serious problem, not only in enforcing building 

codes but it haunts me that I hear reports of traffic deaths in our 

city, and in many instances people were killed in rollover accidents 

without wearing their seat belts so they are sitting on property 

they already own that can be very effective in saving lives, and so 

it should not surprise us, I think, that we have problems in enforcing building codes and motivating people to do a better job of construction. I don’t know the answers but I think we need to involve 

maybe social sciences and disciplines that we have not effectively 

engaged before to see how do we implement what we already know, 

but there is much more to be learned. I don’t say we have all the 

answers. We need to learn much more but we also need to do a better job of using what we already have. 

Ms. BALLEN. We are hoping actually to gather social scientists at 

our research center this December so that we can really begin to 

explore that in more detail. To the extent we have sort of sketched 

out the way we think about this issue, we think it is first a question of getting the hearts and minds of people, getting them to really sort of want this, and we talked about that a little bit before in 

terms of one of the answers to the previous questions. The second 

is providing the adequate incentives. That is for both individuals 

and for states. An example of how that might work at the state 

level is the Safe Building Code Incentive Act that also has been introduced in this Congress. It provides additional funding for States 

that do the right thing in terms of enacting strong building codes. 

That is a financial incentive. There could be other incentives for individuals. And finally, understanding the politics of this. We talked 

about the builders. You know, we have to make this a win-win 

proposition and make the market really want this to happen for us 

to sort of address those social-science issues. 

Dr. PREVATT. I might add that NOAA and the NSF, National 

Science Foundation, last year, they operated, or they organized a 

pretty comprehensive workshop called Weather Ready Nation in 

which they brought together the physical scientists and engineers 

with the social scientists to actually discuss the issues of weather, 

you know, acknowledging that yes, forecasting has got us so far, 

and yes, we are better at it but the property damage. So the move 

has been started. There is a report which if you would like I can 

provide that link to you in which we are now working with social 

scientists. I was on a rapid NSF project in Moore, Oklahoma, and 

we did involve Mississippi State social scientists and social scientists from the University of Alabama as well as ourselves, engineers in other universities. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you. I would like to take a look at that. I 

think it is something that we oftentimes overlook I think in legislation here. We should make sure that in NWIRP we include social 

sciences because you can do all the research that you want to know 

how to mitigate damage to property, threats to human life if no one 

is implementing those and we don’t know, as Ms. Ballen said, we 

are not sure about the incentives of how to get people to actually 

take that into account. Then we just have research sitting on a 

shelf that is not doing anyone any good, so I think that is some-
59 

thing important that we have to make sure that we are considering 

here in providing at the Federal level. 

I yield back. Thank you. 

Chairman BUCSHON. Thank you. I now recognize Ms. Esty for 

five minutes. 

Ms. ESTY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

As a quick follow-up to Mr. Lipinski’s discussion for Ms. Ballen, 

in looking at incentives, is the insurance industry offering lower 

premiums to those who have retrofitted or, say, hurricane ties and 

what sort of incentives is the marketplace providing? Because we 

know, for example, the tax credits do not seem to be terribly effective right now, so I am wondering what is being done on the private side. 

Ms. BALLEN. I always do stress that individual companies make 

their own decisions, but that said, IBHS developed a code plus 

standard called Fortified. We know that those technical standards 

work and the program includes an inspection and designation process so that we know that the homes that were built to those standards, supposedly built to those standards, really are built to those 

standards. Many individual companies are providing discounts for 

Fortified homes, and that has also been required in rate filings in 

some states, but it is not enough to say ‘‘oh, if a homeowner says 

or a builder says that they have built to that standard, it is.’’It has 

got to be inspected, it has got to be verified. 

Ms. ESTY. Thank you, and a further follow-up. Living in Connecticut where we experienced a number of storms over the last 

few years, we have great concern about resilience about the life 

lines, utilities, infrastructure. So if any of the three of you can talk 

a little bit about what is being done on the research side, on these 

critical issues where you can’t have rebuilding, you can’t have—you 

can’t even get access to people. You can’t get them back on line, 

and what we ought to be looking at in that department. 

Dr. PREVATT. I think that is the entire direction of the Engineering School of Sustainable Infrastructure and Environment at the 

University of Florida. That is our entire mission. It is in several 

universities, resilience and sustainability, the hallmarks of what 

we are doing in civil engineering. Before we get to a sustainable 

society, we first of all have to get a resilient one, one that is more 

robust, and the research sometimes is fundamental to this. We do 

need to better understand the loads. We do need to better understand the structural properties of the buildings, the infrastructure, 

the utilities, what have you, but, you know, I think we really just 

need to decide, we really do need just to decide that we want to 

live in a sustainable society, and we can do it. Yes, it will cost some 

money, it will cost some time, but I guarantee if you put engineers 

and scientists, social scientists as well, on this case, we can do this 

in ten years. It takes, you know, just that bold vision to go after 

it. 

Ms. ESTY. Well, I know some of the work, say, that Frances 

Cairncross has done looking at multiple ways to address climatechange issues and particularly with our populations being increasingly concentrated on the coasts. We are seeing—whatever it is attributable to, we are certainly seeing an increase in more severe 

weather. So I think it is going to be extremely important that we 
60 

take this resilience line of research quite seriously and address it 

as an extremely high priority as we are extremely energy-dependent for everything that we do. If we do not harden our systems, we 

have been looking at cybersecurity but we also just need to look at 

natural weather ability to bring down whole cities, and I am quite 

concern that we not forget how critical that is. Just look what happened in Staten Island, look what happened in New York, and we 

do need to be emphasizing retrofitting, not just new standards, but 

what are we going to do with major cities that need to be retrofitted for the utilities. 

Thanks very much. I yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairman BUCSHON. Thank you. I now ask unanimous consent 

to recognize a member of the full Committee for questioning. If 

there is no objection then, the Chair now recognizes Mr. 

Neugebauer for five minutes. 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I would also 

like to return the favor and yield a little of my time to Mr. 

Schweikert from Arizona. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Thank you. I didn’t know if I should object 

there and then I could yield. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

It is Ms. Ballen? 

Ms. BALLEN. Ballen. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Ballen. Actually, Elizabeth was hitting a point 

that I wanted to go to. We all live in a world where how many of 

us right now will go out and buy a Volvo over a, is it a Corvair? 

Any of us that are old enough to remember a Corvair, you know, 

unsafe at any speed. But the fact of the matter is, when you are 

buying a car today, aren’t we also looking at the Consumer Reports 

and saying hey, this is safe, my insurance is cheaper. There is a 

price differential there driven by the insurance industry that actually changes our purchasing behavior. Why isn’t that also the decision for those who are purchasing residential real estate is our 

price differential and our cost of insurance? 

Ms. BALLEN. That is an excellent question and one we ask ourselves every single day. Our peer organization is the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, and they showed the way, how research 

and communications lead to safer cars and people wanting them, 

and then you have enough people with these cars that you really 

begin to see the difference in the losses, and insurance companies 

respond to that. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. But, you know, I understand for public buildings and schools and those things, particularly those with some 

Federal resources in them, we have a voice there. But if I am out 

buying a residential property or getting ready to refit or remodel 

and I—how many of us have bought a house and we will fixate on 

small margins on the interest rate between one lender and another? But if there is actual price differentials understood in the 

market between I did these types of tie-downs on my roof and this 

house doesn’t have these sorts of tie-downs so I am going to pay 

this sort of premium, isn’t that the ultimate solution here? 

Ms. BALLEN. That is the ultimate solution. The market is the ultimate solution. It would be benefited by the kind of research that 

we are talking about but ultimately people need to want that. Now, 

I think the impediments are—— 
61 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Well, the work is on incentives and disincentives, so they want it; they just need to understand there is a price 

difference. 

Ms. BALLEN. They need to understand that, yes, and the building 

industry is much more complicated than the automobile industry. 

There are thousands of builders out there versus, you know, five 

or six or seven car companies. The guys that do it are every roofer, 

you know—— 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Well, and only because my undergrad is in real 

estate and my master’s focus was in financing, the real estate 

world is the life I grew up in. It is not the builders, it is the consumer. And if you told me—if I came to you right now and said 

hey, you buy this house because of the attributes, you pay this interest rate, but if I bought this one I would pay this interest rate, 

we all scream and go running to this one. Why is it not the same 

in insurance? And Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield to Mr. 

Neugebauer because I know he had a little bit more on this. 

Ms. BALLEN. Okay. 

Mr. NEUGEBAUER. I thank the gentleman. 

Dr. Kiesling, you know, one of the things that you mentioned a 

while ago is that the winds of a tornado are much different than 

a gust, vertical wind. So there are different categories of events, all 

the way from, I guess, an F–0 to F–5 so there is probably—at this 

particular point in time the F–5 is just, we don’t have the technology, you know, on an economic basis to protect a home from an 

F–5 storm probably. So then if we go just to the mitigation of life 

over property saying the house doesn’t make it, but there are 

things that you have done, worked on of various degrees that are 

fairly affordable inside that home of fortification. Could you just 

kind of cover a little bit of what are some practical things that 

could be done in the homes both retrofit and new construction? 

Dr. KIESLING. Well, thank you for asking. I think from early on 

we more or less adopted the approach that it is very expensive to 

take a home of the type that we build today and design it to resist 

the worst-case tornado. You can certainly improve the performance 

and protect against severe damage from the vast majority of even 

tornados because, as I said before, the damage is caused by marginal wind speeds, but we adopted the idea or the philosophy of 

providing occupant protection in a small room, now called a safe 

room, because it is very affordable to harden and stiffen a small 

room of a house to provide near-absolute occupant protection. That 

might be a closet, a pantry, a bathroom, and that is practical for 

new construction, but the vast majority of safe rooms being installed today are manufactured. They are steel boxes, concrete 

boxes, timber boxes installed in a garage, on the slab of a garage, 

and they are very affordable. There even those shelters that are 

mounted under the slab. You can go in the garage, cut out a section 

of a piece of the garage floor, excavate, put a shelter under there 

and put a sliding door on it so you provide protection without even 

losing a parking space. There are many, many options available 

today, and I would say for almost every situation or circumstances, 

it is possible to design occupant protection from the worst-case tornado, and we have a real problem with that right now with public 

perception because there was so much bad publicity, misinforma-
62 

tion in Oklahoma about having to be underground to survive an 

EF–5. That is simply a falsehood that should be squelched. 

But in answer to your question, I think there is a way to protect 

life in a safe room very inexpensively, and I think we must do the 

best we can in reducing the damage by improving the buildings 

through building-code enforcement. 

One other point that I would make that is different in the automobile industry and in the home-building industry, both are sensitive to initial cost but most of the houses are built speculative 

today, and as you well know, the marketability of housing is very, 

very sensitive to the initial cost, and not only builders but I think 

homeowners too look at that initial cost and resist any improvement that costs very much initially. 

Chairman BUCSHON. Thank you very much. At this point, I 

would like to thank the witnesses for their testimony and the Members for their questions. The Members of the Committee may have 

additional questions for you, and we will ask that you respond to 

those in writing. The record will remain open for two weeks for additional comments and written questions from the Members. 

At this point the witnesses are excused. The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:17 a.m., the Subcommittees were adjourned.] 
(63) 

Appendix I 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS
64 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Dr. Ernst Kiesling 
65 
66 
67 
68 
69 
70 

Responses by Ms. Debra Ballen 
71 
72 
73 
74 
75 

Responses by Dr. David Prevatt 
76 
77 
78 
79 

(81) 

Appendix II 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL FOR THE RECORD
82 

SUBMITTED STATEMENT BY REPRESENTATIVE DANIEL LIPINSKI, 

RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH, 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY, 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Thank you, Chairman Bucshon and Chairman Massie for holding today’s hearing 

to examine federal efforts to reduce the impacts of windstorms. 

This is an incredibly important topic. Every year, severe winds from hurricanes, 

tornadoes, and thunderstorms damage or destroy thousands of homes and businesses, harm vital infrastructure, and, most importantly, threaten human life. An 

average of 74 Americans have died in tornadoes each year since 1983. My prayers 

go out to those in Moore, Oklahoma as well as those outside of Oklahoma City, who 

are currently dealing with this loss. We also cannot forget the more than 1,000 people who lost their lives in Hurricane Katrina. 

The extent of property damage and economic losses from windstorms vary widely, 

but since 2010, economic costs are well over a $100 billion dollars.The National 

Windstorm Impact Reduction Program or N-WIRP has the potential to lessen the 

loss of life and economic damage by translating research and development on the 

understanding of windstorms and their impacts into improved building codes and 

emergency planning. 

In order for these efforts to be effective they cannot leave out the most critical 

component—people. Understanding how people—such as state and local officials, 

business owners, and individuals—make decisions and respond to storm warnings 

is essential to designing effective strategies to prepare for, respond to, and recover 

from a disaster. 

A recent survey by the National Center for Disaster Preparedness accurately 

highlights this need. The survey found that most Americans are unprepared for a 

major disaster and that they have a false sense of security about what will happen 

if a major disaster occurs. 

Specifically, more than half of the families surveyed had no emergency plan in 

place for a hurricane or earthquake, and those who had a plan lacked essential 

items to implement their plan like flashlights and extra batteries. Even more unsettling is that one third of the individuals surveyed believed that calling 911 after a 

major disaster would bring them help within an hour. This is in stark contrast to 

reality which shows that emergency responders are overwhelmed after major disasters and communities often have to take care of themselves for several days before 

help is able to arrive. 

I mention this because I think it is important to remember that we can perform 

all the engineering and natural science research we like, but in the grand scheme 

of things if we don’t have a clear understanding of the human element in disaster 

mitigation, preparedness, and response then those efforts may be for not. 

We only have to look to Moore, Oklahoma for an example. Moore had been hit 

by an EF5 tornado—the most powerful category—before, back in May 1999. One of 

the myths about tornadoes is that they will not hit the same city more than once. 

So when individuals are debating spending the $2,500 to $5,000 on a shelter or the 

$4,000 to $12,000 on a safe room, they are doing so thinking that another tornado 

will not hit and therefore, the extra expense is probably unnecessary. In fact, of the 

40 new homes constructed since that May 1999 storm, only six of them contained 

a safe room. 

Building disaster resilient communities will take an interdisciplinary approach 

and that approach must include social science research. 

Æ