Many new hospitals, schools, apartment buildings and other structures would be built with extra flood protection under a major revision to an international building code approved Friday.
A nonprofit that writes model building codes widely used in the U.S. took a step toward requiring that some newly built structures are constructed well above local flood level — and expanding the areas where elevation is required.
“This is transformative,” said Oregon State University engineering professor Daniel Cox, who led an expert panel that wrote and proposed the new flood standards. “It’s going to change how we mitigate floods in the U.S.”
The standards were approved overwhelmingly Friday at a hearing in Orlando by a committee of the code-writing group, the International Code Council, despite building industry opposition.
