1

National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program (NWIRP)

National Advisory Committee on Windstorm Impact Reduction (NACWIR) 

Meeting Summary

September 25, 2017

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 

Gaithersburg, Maryland 

MEETING PARTICIPANTS

NACWIR Members:

Walker Ashley Northern Illinois University

John Boudreaux Assumption Parish Office of Homeland Security and 

Emergency Preparedness

Parthiv Dangodara AIG Property Casualty

Wanda Edwards RCI, Inc

Katherine Greig New York City Mayor’s Office of Recovery and Resiliency

Forrest Masters University of Florida

Kishor Mehta Texas Tech University

Walter Peacock Texas A&M University

Tim Reinhold, Chair Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety

Donald Resio University of North Florida 

Donald Scott PCS Structural Solutions

Kevin Simmons Austin College

Windstorm Working Group (WWG)

Marc Levitan National Institute of Standards and Technology

Jacqueline Meszaros Office of Science and Technology Policy

Shirley Murillo National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration

Joy Pauschke National Science Foundation

Jonathan Westcott Federal Emergency Management Agency 

NIST Staff 

Jason Averill, DFO Division Chief, Materials and Structural Systems Division

Cartier Murrill Engineering Laboratory Technical Support 

Steve Potts Program Analyst, NWIRP

Members of the Public

Aaron Kielser Lewis-Burke Associates, LLC 

Phil Smith FM Approvals
2

SUMMARY OF DISCUSSION 

I. Opening Remarks

Jason Averill, Chief of the Materials and Structural Systems Division opened the meeting 

and identified himself as the Designated Federal Officer (DFO) for the meeting. Averill

turned the meeting over to Dr. Tim Reinhold, Chair of the Committee. 

Reinhold stated this is the sixth and final meeting of the Committee. He told the 

Committee we have approved the meeting summaries for the first three meetings, and 

will receive the summaries for the remaining meetings this week. Any changes will need 

to be sent in this week. 

Reinhold noted that he received comments from several people on the assessments and 

recommendations document. The purpose of the meeting would be to walk through those 

comments, decide on the edits, and add any final edits desired by the Committee.

II. Summary of Significant Edits to the Document.

• The Committee discussed the title of the document and decided that it will be: 

“Assessments of and Recommendations for the National Windstorm Impact 

Reduction Program and its Implementation.”

• The Committee agreed to add a sentence to the paragraph on Changing Patterns of 

Community Planning section indicating that Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria 

will likely spur more planning efforts.

• The Committee agreed to add a sentence to the paragraph on Insurance describing 

that as costs of insurance rise, many low-income homeowners may opt out of 

coverage entirely, which will further exacerbate the ability of at-risk communities 

to recover.

• In the section on Design and Construction, the Committee agreed to add a 

sentence to the paragraph discussing the continued need for codes and standards, 

describing that the incidence of more frequent and more powerful wind events 

will prompt the need to assess the standards to which codes are developed.

• Reinhold requested a reference for the statement “Death and injury statistics 

demonstrate that a large portion of windstorm related deaths and injuries occur in 

HUD Code manufactured homes.” Ashley provided the following references: 

o Ashley, W. S., 2007: Spatial and temporal analysis of tornado fatalities in 

the United States: 1880-2005. Weather and Forecasting, 22, 1214-1228.

o Sutter, D., and K. M. Simmons, 2010: Tornado fatalities and mobile 

homes in the United States. Natural Hazards, 53, 125-137.

• A question was posed whether the Committee should comment on the quality of 

Harvey, Irma and Maria forecasts. After discussion, however, it was clarified that 

there are no existing evaluations, but those will be done by the end of the year. 

The Committee agreed that nothing needed be added here. 
3

Reinhold asked if there were any other comments to add. He noted that an early draft of 

the report was distributed to the Roofing Industry Committee on Weather Issues, Inc 

(RICOWI) and one RICOWI member responded with a concern that the report was being 

too critical on products with wind ratings. Reinhold added that he asked two of the 

Committee members to go back and evaluate this, and they found that the sections in 

question had been edited and the current language in the report is general enough, and 

furthermore that there are enough well-known problems with these products to justify the 

current language. The Committee decided that content currently in the report is 

sufficient. 

Reinhold closed the edits to the body of the report, and moved to the Executive 

Summary. The most significant discussion and edits to this section included:

• The term “hailstorms” was replaced by thunderstorms in a sentence in the second 

paragraph describing events which might increasingly affect large numbers of

properties and infrastructure, as more general and since the Strategic Plan did not 

have any focus on hail.

• A suggestion was made that the report provide an example of how inadequate 

funding has impacted the NWIRP agencies’ ability to implement research results 

within the Program. The Committee agreed to add an example about how NSF 

funds research to improve the understanding and modeling of various windstorm 

related phenomenon; but, there are no funds available to apply those models to 

improve guidance for design or to develop tables or enough data to support 

building code changes.

III. Public Comment Period.

Reinhold asked if any of the members of the public who registered to participate in the 

meeting would like to add anything. Mr. Smith asked if members of the public would be 

able to see the report. Averill responded that once the report is finalized, it will be sent to 

the NIST Director. Then it will go to the leadership of the NWIRP agencies. In parallel, 

NIST will post the report to the NACWIR website (https://www.nist.gov/el/materialsand-structural-systems-division-73100/national-windstorm-impact-reduction-program-1) 

so the public will have access to it as well. Averill also committed that the NWIRP 

program will send notification to members of the public who have registered to 

participate in any of the NACWIR meetings.

IV. Adjournment

Reinhold asked for any final edits or comments. There being none, the Committee 

members thanked Reinhold for his hard work in pulling all of this together. Reinhold and 

Averill then both thanked the Committee for their efforts. The meeting adjourned the 

meeting at 9:50 a.m. EDT.