Be Prepared to Respond to Natural Disasters

Building safety is all about doing everything you can to prevent losses and save lives when something goes wrong — and that proactive work can make all the difference when natural disasters strike.

Whether it’s floods, fires, earthquakes, tornadoes, or hurricanes, enforcing modern building codes with the right digital tools for enforcement and inspections can be the difference between a resilient, ready community and a wake of rubble and loss that will make recovery even more difficult.

Our previous Building Safety Month articles have explored the impact of building safety on daily life and how local governments can support local building safety programs. Now, let’s turn to a critically important topic: How America’s local governments can be prepared to respond to natural disasters.

The Rising Risk of Natural Disasters

Natural hazards like wildfires, severe weather, and storms have always been a part of life, but the risk is increasing. So, what’s behind these changing odds of major damage and loss of life?

It’s important to understand how multiple factors are at play in this changing landscape. Weather-related disasters are happening more frequently, and the average severity is also on the rise in recent decades.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information says there were 403 weather or climate disaster events in the United States that caused more than $1 billion of losses from 1980 to 2024. Those figures were adjusted using the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to account for inflation.

During those 45 years, the annual average was 9 billion-dollar events — but the average number of these catastrophic events for the most recent five years, 2020 to 2024, had grown exponentially to 23.

A Growing Population in At-Risk Areas

On top of those changing weather and disaster patterns, rapid population growth has occurred in certain areas that are especially prone to natural hazards, such as the Gulf Coast, which is threatened by hurricanes, and the West Coast, where wildfires and earthquakes remain a major problem.

There are more people and buildings than ever before in areas that are at risk of these catastrophic natural disasters. Because of this, today’s storms can cause even greater damage and loss of life, especially as infrastructure ages.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency conducted a study to pinpoint just how much of a difference stronger modern building codes can make. It analyzed 18.1 million buildings constructed since 2000 to determine prevented damage and losses due to flooding, hurricane winds, and earthquakes — and the numbers speak for themselves.

According to FEMA’s study, an estimated $1.6 billion of average annualized losses were avoided in the United States because of the proactive work of building stronger structures that were meant to better withstand these natural disasters.

By 2040, FEMA says projected future savings from these stronger buildings will add up to a total of $132 billion of cumulative losses that will be avoided.

How Community Development Professionals Strengthen Disaster Defenses

Building officials, code enforcement officers, inspectors, and planners play a vital role in enforcing resilient construction in their communities. They work every day on the front lines of their towns, cities, and counties, ensuring that new and old buildings are as ready as possible to meet the challenges of natural disasters in the years to come.

Still, today’s community development professionals have more on their plates than ever before. Demand for local government services is increasing everywhere, and at the same time, municipalities are often struggling with tight budgets and lean workforces. More than ever, they need to get even more done with even fewer resources than in years past.

In modern times, stepping up to these compounding challenges requires maximizing what you can do with a lean local government by looking for every possible chance to reduce inefficiencies and streamline workflows. There just isn’t time to waste anymore, and the job is becoming more important for everyone’s safety.

Ensuring safe permitting and inspections before, during, and after a disaster can dramatically improve your community’s overall building safety — potentially saving lives and millions of dollars of damages and losses in the process.

Build Up Your Digital Defenses with Cloudpermit

A prepared municipal government can be ready to take on any challenges that come, including natural disasters, by being proactive about implementing and enforcing development codes.

If disaster strikes, modern tools for inspections, permitting, planning, and code enforcement can streamline workflows and improve overall transparency to make the most out of those initial recovery efforts.

With Cloudpermit’s online community development software, local governments can be ready to respond to natural disasters with the features they need to:

• Access and update property data right from the field, even without an internet connection.
• Digitize permitting and inspection workflows for faster response and recovery.
• Easily assign and track inspections quickly after storms or wildfires.
• Maintain clear, accessible records for damage assessments or emergency permits.
• Integrate with the local GIS for parcel-level accuracy in disaster zones.
• Access adopted building codes instantly with the ICC Code Connect integration.