Some hurricane-prone states are skimping when it comes to infrastructure safety. This news comes from a recent analysis of residential building codes in 18 Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Coast states administered by the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety.
This assessment of individual states’ residential building code system measured three elements: code adaptation and enforcement, code official training and certification, and licensing requirements for construction trades.
Based on these factors, the 18 states were each assigned numerical safety values between 0 (unsafe) and 100 (safe). Of these, 13 states earned scores above 50:
- Florida (95)
- Virginia (95)
- New Jersey (93)
- Massachusetts (87)
- South Carolina (84)
- Connecticut (81)
- North Carolina (81)
- Rhode Island (78)
- Louisiana (73)
- Maryland (73)
- Georgia (66)
- Maine (64)
- New York (60).
Five more states achieved scores less than 50 points:
- New Hampshire (49)
- Alabama (18)
- Texas (18)
- Delaware (17)
- Mississippi (4).
Of the low-scoring states, none had enforcement officials. Alabama and Mississippi alike both additionally lacked a universally adopted safety code.
