The Moore City Council on Tuesday delayed a vote on an ordinance that would strengthen construction standards to help reduce damage from tornadoes.
The measure would modify the city’s residential building code by “adding requirements for bolting and fasteners to the foundation, top plate, bottom plate, doors and windows, and truss to wall connections,” according to the council’s meeting agenda.
Oklahoma’s state and local building codes don’t address tornadoes. And Timothy Marshall, a meteorologist and a civil engineer at Haag Engineering in Dallas, says Oklahoma’s construction standards aren’t tough enough. He said the same thing in 1999, when an F-5 tornado ripped through Moore. State and local officials didn’t listen then, Marshall told StateImpact, and he doesn’t expect that to change, even after the May’s devastating EF-5.
State building code officials and their local counterparts in Moore say they’re considering toughening construction standards, but authorities are worried about increasing home-building costs. (…)
via Moore Officials Delay Vote on Upgrading Building Codes for Tornadoes | StateImpact Oklahoma.