Over the past two hurricane seasons, Florida has weathered theimpact of eight major storms that have caused billions of dollarsin losses and left untold numbers of citizens coping with damagedhomes and the dislocation that comes in the aftermath of a majorstorm. Hurricanes Jeanne, Charley, Frances, and Ivan alone causeddamage to one out of every five homes in the state. And the expertsall agree that Florida is likely to see similar hurricane seasonsfor some years to come.

However, in contrast to previous decades, insurers andhomeowners are no longer completely at the mercy of storm damage.For among the lessons learned in the last two hurricane seasons isthat the tough statewide building codes passed by lawmakers in the1990s, and the evolution of mitigation techniques, are working toprotect property and reducing the dollar amount of damage.

Take for instance the results of a new report by the Tampa-basedInstitute for Business and Home Safety. The institute is anon-profit organization that focuses on finding and evaluating waysto reduce the property damage, economic losses, and human sufferingcaused by natural disasters. The IBHS report focused on assessingthe performance of the new building codes. Included in the findingswas this startling fact: In the aftermath of Hurricane Charley thatstruck southwest Florida in August 2002, only 130 demolitionpermits were pulled in Charlotte County and none of those were forhomes built after 1992. In fact, engineers for the safety instituteand other experts estimated that the new building codes wereresponsible for saving at least $40 million in damage in CharlotteCounty.