HMA Webinar (1-25-2018): Using ASCE 24 for Hazard Mitigation Assistance - Transcript

HMA Webinar (1-25-2018): Using ASCE-24 for Hazard Mitigation Assistance – Transcript

Kirsten Roth: Thank you for joiningthe webinar.John, if you want to go ahead and open up that would be great.

John Ingargiola:Good afternoon, everyone. I amJohnIngargiola. I’m lead physicalscientist with the Building ScienceBranch in the Risk ManagementDivision of FIMA. Thank you forjoining today's webinar, BuildingCodes for Mitigation: Using ASCE-24. We hopeyou find today's information veryvaluable.

This webinar isextremely timely and relevant. Weare all reminded of the devastatingimpacts from the last hurricaneseason. Devastating wind and flooddamage and loss were experiencedas well as other monumental floodsand wildfire impacts acrossthe US.

In 2016, withFEMA’s building codes directive, FEMAreaffirmed its commitment to usingminimum hazard-resistant codes andstandards in itsprograms including public assistanceand hazard mitigation assistance.The good news is these codes,including ASCE-24, are widelyusedalready across the country.So, over thenext hour our goal is to provideindividuals and businesses withthe information about the AmericanSociety Civil Engineers, ASCE-24 Building Codes forMitigation. Especially as they relateto developing and implementing mitigationprojects such as elevation, floodproofing, and mitigation reconstruction.

As a reminder,participants whowould find value in this webinarincludefloodplain administrators, cityofficials, buildingcode officials, insurance adjusters,and others who have an interestin understanding and applying ASCE-24 requirements.

I would like to thankthe presenter, Adam Reeder, as aconsultant for FEMA Building Scienceson wind and flood mitigation for histime and for sharinghis expertise, and the resources withus today.

Adam was an author of FEMA guidancefor applying ASCE-24. So, onthe left side youwill see instructions to submitquestions. So please submit them throughoutthe presentation via private chat,through 1-FEMA-questions at anytime. We will do our best to answeras many as we can during the questionand an answer session.

Kirsten Roth: Thank you, John.

John Ingargiola:There is a variety of resources.

You’re welcome.

Kirsten Roth: And on the right-hand side youwill see file share, and right there you are actually ableto download a copy of today's presentation.It is a 508-compliant copy ofthe presentation. So all you have to do is go over to thefile share pod, click on that andhit download files and a copy ofthe presentation will be availableto you.

We will have a few short pollquestions at the end ofthe webinar and we really appreciateyour feedback. It helps usmake future webinars even better, so we would ask you to take a momentatthe end to answer our polling questions.

So, without further ado, I wouldlike to turn it over to our presenterAdam,thank you.> Adam, are youon mute?

Adam Reeder: That was good.Thank you, Kristen. So todaywe’re going to go through why ASCE-24 is required, whatis ASCE-24,a littlebit about somespecifics regarding ASCE-24 andhow it’s different fromwhat youmay have been used to in the past.We’ll talk a littlebit about actually doing grant applicationsand what information related to ASCE-24 is required in a grant application.A little bit about how it appliesto elevation projects, mitigationreconstructionprojects, dry floodproofingprojects, and discuss some resources.

So, as I said, we’re going toprovide theoverview and talk about the ASCE-24 and how it is used and then follow-upwith some resources, and those resourceswill be available at the end interms of a list of the resourcewith a link.

So, the hazard mitigation assistanceprogram provides mitigation activitiesto protectbothproperty and lives, fromfuture damage. As early as 2015, the hazard mitigationassistance program required theuse of ASCE-24 or an equivalentas a criterion fordoing elevation dry floodproofingor mitigation reconstruction projects,that are in the special flood hazard area.

So what are the hazard mitigationassistancegrant programs? Those consist ofthree programs:the Hazard MitigationGrant Program, is the one manypeople are familiar with after thereis a majordisaster declared in a state, territory,or a tribal area.

And that actually allowsthe stateor territory, or tribal areato determine which projects theywant to do based on dollarsassociated with the damages fromthe disaster.

So often these are the ones you’re familiar with. The other twoprogramsare actuallyrelated to preventativetypes of grantprograms. So, thePre-DisasterMitigation program is typicallyan annual program, but it’s basedon grant dollarsfrom Congressthat states, territories, andtribalareas submitapplications; thoseare applications that are competitivelyevaluated and then those grant dollarsare distributed.

And then there’s also the Flood MitigationAssistance program that works onan annual basis similar to the Pre-DisasterMitigation grant program. That’sto reduce and eliminate flooddamages forNFIP properties.

So, as wesaid, the HMA program has been usingthis requirement for ASCE-24 asearly as 2015, butin 2016, there was a FEMA policy,204 078-2, thatchanged that requirement, as it saysthat FEMA will encourage, and tothe extent permitted by law require,the integration and use of nationallyrecognized voluntary consensus-basedbuilding codesand standards acrossFEMA programs.

So thispolicy covers all the FEMA programs,including PublicAssistance. And that all the FEMA programswill adopt regulations, policies,that are related to these code programs. So now it is more pervasive thanjust the HMAprogramas of 2016, and the real highlight here is that it includesPublic Assistance.

What is ASCE-24? ASCE-24 andanotherdocument called ASCE-7together areused to design buildingsto resistflood loads. It addresses material, design engineering requirements,and then to some extent testing proceduresand relates to ASTM standards andother standards that may be usedto test products that would be usedonthe building.

It’s developed as aconsensus process, meaning that thereis a committee that is selectedof professional engineers, contractors,and other parts of the public. They’re allowed to review thisdocument. And they can also submitcomments and suggestions on how ASCE-24 can be improved. ASCE-24,by reference, is a supplement tothe building codes,particularly the model codes forthe international codes that youmay be familiar with. So theother document that I do want tomake you aware of here is also referencedin ASCE-24, and ASCE-24 isreferencedwithin this other document,and that is ASCE-7. And ASCE-7 is a minimum design load forbuildings and other structures, andthis is the document that engineersused to calculate all of the buildingloads and then you’llsee within Section5 of ASCE-7 that it directly references ASCE-24 fordevelopingflood loads.

Just a brief overviewof the section today of the ASCE-24,and I want to say that eachof the sections in ASCE-24 buildon theprevious section. So Section 1 provides the scope,it provides definitions for termsused within there so that you havean idea about what those terms areinconsistency and use of the terms,provide basic requirements, and thento provide some flood loading requirements.Those general requirements are usedthroughout the rest of ASCE-24 and are referenced back.

Section 2 covers areas thatwe thinkof as A zones; they’re referenced in the codes. As you might know, these areas ona Flood Insurance Rate Map, as zoneA. Section 3 covers high risk floodareas, and those are not necessarilycoastal areas; they are more riverineareas, areas subject to flash flooding, alluvial fan, mudslide areas, erosion-prone areas, high velocity areas, andthen we do have some descriptionof wave action areas as well asice jams anddebris areas.

Section 4 is the other key areathat many of you if you have a coastalarea are going to be looking at,andthat coverswhat are coastal high hazard areas,and think of those as primarilythe B zone, on a Flood InsuranceRate Map and the Coastal A Zone which, I will talk about in a fewslides about why the Coastal A Zone is important and why this may be a new termto some of you.

Section 5 talks about materialrequirements. It does differentiatebetween coastalareas and riverine areas in termsof corrosion protection, but it alsotalks about steel, concrete, masonry,wood, in terms of which materialsare allowable, what testing procedures are used for those materials inorder to make sure that the materialsused inthe project are going to be flooddamage resistant.

Section Six, those of youlooking at dry floodproofing projectswill be interestedin reading Section6 in its entirety; particularly Section6.1 covers dry floodproofing. Wet floodproofing is also covered,and that wet floodproofing as it’s covered with this is basicallythose areas used for the allowableuses of parking, storage, and buildingaccess, that are belowthe base flood elevation.

Section 7, are tenant utilitiesand equipment. You’ll see thesereferenced in Section 2, which is the ZoneA section, SectionFour, which is the V zone and Coastal AZone, as well as Section 6,that it doesreference Section 7.

Section 8 isbuilding access. Section 9 isgoingto cover the other parts of thebuilding that may not bethe primarypart of the building, but couldcontribute to damages of the building.So that’s why it covers garages, thoseattached, detached, carports, accessorystructures, chimneys, pools, andthose would be pools that are attachedor not attached, and tanks oftencame up.

There are some references. Those are going to be the references tothe ASTM standards,The American Concrete Institute, andother reference standards withinthe documents, and then for eachof these 10 sections there's acommentary section that ishelpfulto kind of understand the intentof ASCE-24.

Buildings within ASCE-24 are groupedby flood design class.And that flood design class goes frommore of an agricultural use buildingto common residentialand commercial use buildings, tomore higher occupancysuch as schools,movie theaters,higher occupancy buildings, and thenfinally critical facilities suchaspolice stations, fire stations, any critical andessential facilities within a community,and there are higher standards basedon what that use of that buildingis,and we’ll show you an exampleof that a little bit later.

So, let’s talk about how ASCE-24 definesthose coastal flood zones.This goes back to whether you needto useSection 2, which is the A zone area or Section4.In Section 4 you’re going to findthe V zones. They’renotedas Zone Von the Flood InsuranceRate Map, and these areareas where thewave height is 3 feetor greater. In these areas, ASCE-24 as well asthe National Flood InsuranceProgram require open foundation.There’s arequirement that compliance interms of how that elevation is measuredis to the bottom of the lowest horizontalstructuralfloor member. And as I said, that’s the way they are designated onthe Flood Insurance Rate Map.

This next one, if you've never used ASCE-24 or may not be familiar withthe building code, it’s going to be particularly important.This is a Coastal AZone, and this is where the waveheights are between 1.5feetand3feet. Per ASCE-24, these areas also requireopen foundations. There is an allowancefor another foundation type calledstem walls thatare allowed in these areas, and we’ll talk about those a little bitlater.

Compliance is also measured tothe bottom of the low horizontalstructural member of the lowest floor.And you’ll know what the Coastal A Zone is based on the Flood Insurance Rate Map. Newer maps includea line and that’s shown on the right side of theexample FIRM, and that lineis calledthe limit of moderate wave action,and the area betweenthe limit of moderate wave actionand the line designating Zone Vare going to be those Coastal A Zones.So these are also going to fall inSection 4 of ASCE-24 as well as the Vzone, and the requirement is very similar.The intentis wanting to have foundations thatare not going to be damaged bywave loads.

ZoneA is that nearest extent of the specialflood hazardarea landward, and that’s wherewe have wave heights less than1.5 feet. This allows the use ofclosed foundations as long as thoseclosed foundations have flood openingsin them. There’s alsoan allowancefor fill in these areas, andthat compliance measure that wewill see in a few slides isgoing to be the top of thelowest floor.

This section is covered in Section2of ASCE-24.

So, looking at ASCE-24 and howitrelates to the National Flood Insurance Program,particularly the Code of FederalRegulations 4460.3, the provisions of ASCE-24 are consistent with the NFIP performance requirement. ASCE-24 either meets orexceeds those NFIP requirementsas stated in Section60.3, but Iwant you to thinkof ASCE-24 as the new standard ofpractice.

Based onthosememorandums that we talked aboutearlier that were adopted in 2015for HMA and as of 2016, for the rest of theFEMA program, ASCE-24 is nowthe standard of practice. So, how doesit compare to ASCE-24?How does 24 relate to the Section 60.3? It providesmorespecific requirements. It incorporatesthe use of the Coastal A Zone thatwe saw a couple of slides back with foundation requirements forthose CoastalA Zones.

It requires new construction, as well as those buildings that are substantially improvedor substantially damaged, toincorporate freeboard. Now substantialimprovement andsubstantial damage, probably a termmany of you are familiar with, butjust to catch everybody else up,when we look at substantial building,any building that is in the specialhazard area that hasbeen damagedby anything from floodto fire to anysort of damage to that building,will be evaluated by the local buildingofficial, and if the repairs to thebuilding constitute50 percent of the pre-damaged valueof the building, it will be deemedsubstantially damaged and the requirementis that it needs to be brought intothe current NFIPrequirement, meaningthe current flood elevation requirement as well as the other foundationrequirement in the NFIP.

Substantial improvement appliesa very similar standard to improvementto a structure, and if the value ofthe improvement exceeds 50 percentof the pre-improved value of the structure,it’s going to be deemed by that localofficial to be substantially improved.

If you have questions about substantialimprovement or substantial damage,I would recommend you look at a documentcalled FEMA 758, that’s P-758, andthat provides a desk reference tosubstantial damage and substantialimprovement.

The other requirement that you’re going to see with ASCE-24 is that itrequiresdryfloodproofingto include human intervention requirements,and we’ll talk about those dryfloodproofing requirements in afew slides.

What is it going to require?We just talked about substantialimprovement, substantial damagewith new buildings. Ifwe’re looking at projects thatdonot constitute new construction,these would be existing buildingretrofit. They may not requirecompliance with ASCE-24 if theydon’tmeet that substantial improvementor substantial damage threshold.

You are encouraged to use ASCE-24 to the largest extent possible with those, but you may not beable to comply with allof those.

I will say that if we are talkingabout FEMA-fundedretrofit projects, complete compliance with ASCE-24 is preferred, and we’ll talk abouthow that relates to elevation projectsanddry floodproofing projectsas retrofitting projects in a fewminutes.Some of the requirementswith ASCE-24 may be satisfiedvia documentation, indicating thatthat portion of ASCE-24 is deemedto comply; that you tried to applythe spirit of ASCE-24 to reducethose damages.

Notice that note on theright side; it says that HMA-fundedelevationdry floodproofingprojects mustcomply with ASCE-24 regardlessof whether they are substantiallydamaged or they trigger substantialimprovement.

So if we’re talking about thoseHMA-funded projects, it doesn’tmatter whetheryou are meeting thosesubstantialimprovement thresholds or thatexisting building that was damagedwas substantially damaged; if youare going to use HMAfunding, it must comply with ASCE-24.

FEMA has a guidance document.This was donein 2013. You’regoing to wantto download this document, and we’ll provide you a web link in orderto download this. It differs fromthe actual ASCE-24 document,soyou’re going to need both. Youhave to purchase ASCE-24 from the American Societyof Civil Engineers. FEMA does notprovide that document for free.But thisguidance document is a FEMA publicationwhich means it’s free.

It provides you a walk-throughfor each of these project types in veryspecific detail and talks about what must comply directly with ASCE-24 versus whataspects of the project may be deemedto comply.

You can make sure by using thisguidance document that you can meetthoseperformance requirements of ASCE-24 with your HMA project.And it kindof sets someof those guidance interms of this must comply completelywith ASCE-24 and this maybe a deemed tocomply portion.

Now that you’re kind of thinkingabout doingan HMAgrant project let’s talk about what should be includedin that application. We will giveyou three example statements thatwould be included in the typicalapplication in order toensure that when there's a projectreview done, a technical review ofyour project done, that they canverify that youunderstand that you're going tomeet the ASCE-24 requirement.

So thefirst affirmation isfrom the applicant stating thatthe scope of work will be in compliancewith ASCE-24.You’ll see thatthere is reference to ASCE-24-05,2005 edition or the most recentedition and that is ASCE-24, the 2014.Usuallynote it’s ASCE-24-05 or ASCE-24-14. So we wantto make sure your scope ofwork is going to comply.The next statementthat we’re going to need is that you understandthat prior to theproject closeout,that design documentation and certificationsmust be submitted to FEMAto demonstrate that it conformsto ASCE-24, aswell as the established codes andother standards. So thismay reference the InternationalBuilding Code orInternational ResidentialCode aswell as ASCE-7 that you met those requirements,and this includes a specific statementto ASCE-24 and that requirement, so you wantto make sure that you affirm thatit has been met at the end of theproject.

The last statement is anaffirmation that the applicant understandsthat if they fail to comply or incorporate ASCE-24 in theirproject, that it isthe breach of the terms and conditionsof the grant award.

So, it’s basically saying that ifyou don’t incorporate ASCE-24,you’re in breach of this agreement you have with FEMA. Now this seems like a tall order, and we want to make surethat you know that your design professionalsshould be familiar with ASCE-24. That they know they need to incorporate it. This may actually require themto do some additional constructionoversight.They may need to knowthis at thetime so they can includeit in theircost estimate for the design work.The local officials should alsoknow that they need to be familiarwith ASCE-24 both in the designprocess as well as the constructionprocess so that they can make surethat they incorporate it.

This is covered in that guidance documentabout what those primary requirementsare that they needto follow. So it’s much, much easier ifyou go ahead and read that guidancedocument.

So what qualifies asthis design documentation? A statementor affidavit from thedesign professionals, showing thatit either complies or it’s been deemed to comply with those requirements.It is arequirement about template design.What is a template design? If you'redoing an elevation project and doingseveral buildings with that elevationproject, maybe 20, maybe 30 elevationprojects, and you have a standard designthat you’re going to use on mostof those, you’re saying that thestandard design meets ASCE-24.