Citation

Simmons KM, Kovacs P, Kopp GA. Weather Clim. Soc. 2015; 7(2): 169-178.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, American Meteorological Society)

DOI

10.1175/WCAS-D-14-00032.1

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In April 2014, the city of Moore, Oklahoma, adopted enhanced building codes designed for wind-resistant construction. This action came after Moore suffered three violent tornadoes in 14 yr. Insured loss data and a rigorous approach to estimating how much future damage can be mitigated is used to conduct a benefit-cost analysis of the Moore standards applied to the entire state of Oklahoma. The results show that the new codes easily pass the benefit-cost test for the state of Oklahoma by a factor of 3 to 1. Additionally, a sensitivity analysis is conducted on each of the five input variables to identify the threshold where each variable causes the benefit-cost test to fail. Variables include the estimate of future losses, percent of damage that can be reduced, added cost, residential share of overall losses, and the discount rate.