During a recent business trip, I safely sat in my hotel room working on my laptop as severe storms blew across town and inundated the area for several hours. I surveyed the downpour through the window to evaluate the susceptibility of the hotel to flooding. Satisfied with the high elevation of the hotel and noticeable grade of the parking lot below, I had the fleeting thought that somewhere out there, flooding would occur – I just didn’t know where.
Reading the news the following morning confirmed declared states of emergency from various counties and reports of flooding and damage. The cycle of hazardous events with reports of damage triggers questions such as: Was the hazard within what was expected for this location? Are structural damage reports what we would expect given our design requirements? SEI asks these questions in the wake of many severe storms and extreme events including tornados, hurricanes, and earthquakes. I wonder about such things for my personal safety; SEI asks these questions so that we all can collectively benefit from incorporating the lessons learned from structural performance into SEI standards and design documents.
SEI’s upcoming Summer Series webinar and accompanying article in STRUCTURE address exactly this topic. SEI Standards Committee chairs explain how they each learned valuable information during post-disaster assessment trips that resulted directly in new and revised provisions in ASCE 7 and ASCE 24. Learn more details and plan to attend the free webinar on August 25th.
“Portage, Michigan, Tornado of May 7, 2024, Post-Disaster Assessment: Building Performance Observations and Recommendations” is the most recent SEI report outlining the impacts and relevant lessons learned from environmental hazards — this time from a direct hit of an EF2 tornado in Michigan. And once again, standards committee members are considering how lessons learned can be added to design provisions.
Structural performance following design-level events should be non-issues. However, the fact that we often have lessons to learn confirms that real-world performance is not always aligned with theoretical expectations. And when we do learn, you can rest assured that dedicated SEI members are hard at work to make the next versions of our design documents even better and improving the resilience of our built environment along with it.