hma webinar (1 25 2018): using asce 24 for hazard ... › media-library-data › ...using asce-24...

Using ASCE-24 for Hazard Mitigation Assistance – Webinar Transcript

1

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

Kirsten Roth: Thank you for joining the webinar. John, if you want to go

ahead and open up that would be great.

John Ingargiola: Good afternoon, everyone. I am John Ingargiola. I’m lead

physical scientist with the Building Science Branch in the Risk

Management Division of FIMA. Thank you for joining today's webinar,

Building Codes for Mitigation: Using ASCE-24. We hope you find today's

information very valuable.

This webinar is extremely timely and relevant. We are all reminded of the

devastating impacts from the last hurricane season. Devastating wind and

flood damage and loss were experienced as well as other monumental floods

and wildfire impacts across the US.

In 2016, with FEMA’s building codes directive, FEMA reaffirmed its

commitment to using minimum hazard-resistant codes and standards in its

programs including public assistance and hazard mitigation assistance.

The good news is these codes, including ASCE-24, are widely used already

across the country. So, over the next hour our goal is to provide

individuals and businesses with the information about the American

Society Civil Engineers, ASCE-24 Building Codes for Mitigation.

Especially as they relate to developing and implementing mitigation

projects such as elevation, floodproofing, and mitigation reconstruction.

As a reminder, participants who would find value in this webinar include

floodplain administrators, city officials, building code officials,

insurance adjusters, and others who have an interest in understanding and

applying ASCE-24 requirements.

I would like to thank the presenter, Adam Reeder, as a consultant for

FEMA Building Sciences on wind and flood mitigation for his time and for

sharing his expertise, and the resources with us today.

Adam was an author of FEMA guidance for applying ASCE-24. So, on the left

side you will see instructions to submit questions. So please submit them

throughout the presentation via private chat, through 1-FEMA-questions at

any time. We will do our best to answer as many as we can during the

question and an answer session.

Kirsten Roth: Thank you, John.

John Ingargiola: There is a variety of resources.

You’re welcome.


2

Kirsten Roth: And on the right-hand side you will see file share, and

right there you are actually able to download a copy of today's

presentation. It is a 508-compliant copy of the presentation. So all you

have to do is go over to the file share pod, click on that and hit

download files and a copy of the presentation will be available to you.

We will have a few short poll questions at the end of the webinar and we

really appreciate your feedback. It helps us make future webinars even

better, so we would ask you to take a moment at the end to answer our

polling questions.

So, without further ado, I would like to turn it over to our presenter

Adam, thank you. >> Adam, are you on mute?

Adam Reeder: That was good. Thank you, Kristen. So today we’re going to

go through why ASCE-24 is required, what is ASCE-24, a little bit about

some specifics regarding ASCE-24 and how it’s different from what you may

have been used to in the past. We’ll talk a little bit about actually

doing grant applications and what information related to ASCE-24 is

required in a grant application. A little bit about how it applies to

elevation projects, mitigation reconstruction projects, dry floodproofing

projects, and discuss some resources.

So, as I said, we’re going to provide the overview and talk about the

ASCE-24 and how it is used and then follow-up with some resources, and

those resources will be available at the end in terms of a list of the

resource with a link.

So, the hazard mitigation assistance program provides mitigation

activities to protect both property and lives, from future damage. As

early as 2015, the hazard mitigation assistance program required the use

of ASCE-24 or an equivalent as a criterion for doing elevation dry

floodproofing or mitigation reconstruction projects, that are in the

special flood hazard area.

So what are the hazard mitigation assistance grant programs? Those

consist of three programs: the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, is the

one many people are familiar with after there is a major disaster

declared in a state, territory, or a tribal area.

And that actually allows the state or territory, or tribal area to

determine which projects they want to do based on dollars associated with

the damages from the disaster.

So often these are the ones you’re familiar with. The other two programs

are actually related to preventative types of grant programs. So, the

Pre-Disaster Mitigation program is typically an annual program, but it’s

based on grant dollars from Congress that states, territories, and tribal

areas submit applications; those are applications that are competitively

evaluated and then those grant dollars are distributed.


3

And then there’s also the Flood Mitigation Assistance program that works

on an annual basis similar to the Pre-Disaster Mitigation grant program.

That’s to reduce and eliminate flood damages for NFIP properties.

So, as we said, the HMA program has been using this requirement for ASCE-

24 as early as 2015, but in 2016, there was a FEMA policy, 204 078-2,

that changed that requirement, as it says that FEMA will encourage, and

to the extent permitted by law require, the integration and use of

nationally recognized voluntary consensus-based building codes and

standards across FEMA programs.

So this policy covers all the FEMA programs, including Public Assistance.

And that all the FEMA programs will adopt regulations, policies, that are

related to these code programs. So now it is more pervasive than just the

HMA program as of 2016, and the real highlight here is that it includes

Public Assistance.

What is ASCE-24? ASCE-24 and another document called ASCE-7 together are

used to design buildings to resist flood loads. It addresses material,

design engineering requirements, and then to some extent testing

procedures and relates to ASTM standards and other standards that may be

used to test products that would be used on the building.

It’s developed as a consensus process, meaning that there is a committee

that is selected of professional engineers, contractors, and other parts

of the public. They’re allowed to review this document. And they can also

submit comments and suggestions on how ASCE-24 can be improved. ASCE-24,

by reference, is a supplement to the building codes, particularly the

model codes for the international codes that you may be familiar with. So

the other document that I do want to make you aware of here is also

referenced in ASCE-24, and ASCE-24 is referenced within this other

document, and that is ASCE-7. And ASCE-7 is a minimum design load for

buildings and other structures, and this is the document that engineers

used to calculate all of the building loads and then you’ll see within

Section 5 of ASCE-7 that it directly references ASCE-24 for developing

flood loads.

Just a brief overview of the section today of the ASCE-24, and I want to

say that each of the sections in ASCE-24 build on the previous section.

So Section 1 provides the scope, it provides definitions for terms used

within there so that you have an idea about what those terms are in

consistency and use of the terms, provide basic requirements, and then to

provide some flood loading requirements. Those general requirements are

used throughout the rest of ASCE-24 and are referenced back.

Section 2 covers areas that we think of as A zones; they’re referenced in

the codes. As you might know, these areas on a Flood Insurance Rate Map,

as zone A. Section 3 covers high risk flood areas, and those are not

necessarily coastal areas; they are more riverine areas, areas subject to

flash flooding, alluvial fan, mudslide areas, erosion-prone areas, high

velocity areas, and then we do have some description of wave action areas

as well as ice jams and debris areas.


4

Section 4 is the other key area that many of you if you have a coastal

area are going to be looking at, and that covers what are coastal high

hazard areas, and think of those as primarily the B zone, on a Flood

Insurance Rate Map and the Coastal A Zone which, I will talk about in a

few slides about why the Coastal A Zone is important and why this may be

a new term to some of you.

Section 5 talks about material requirements. It does differentiate

between coastal areas and riverine areas in terms of corrosion

protection, but it also talks about steel, concrete, masonry, wood, in

terms of which materials are allowable, what testing procedures are used

for those materials in order to make sure that the materials used in the

project are going to be flood damage resistant.

Section Six, those of you looking at dry floodproofing projects will be

interested in reading Section 6 in its entirety; particularly Section 6.1

covers dry floodproofing. Wet floodproofing is also covered, and that wet

floodproofing as it’s covered with this is basically those areas used for

the allowable uses of parking, storage, and building access, that are

below the base flood elevation.

Section 7, are tenant utilities and equipment. You’ll see these

referenced in Section 2, which is the Zone A section, Section Four, which

is the V zone and Coastal A Zone, as well as Section 6, that it does

reference Section 7.

Section 8 is building access. Section 9 is going to cover the other parts

of the building that may not be the primary part of the building, but

could contribute to damages of the building. So that’s why it covers

garages, those attached, detached, carports, accessory structures,

chimneys, pools, and those would be pools that are attached or not

attached, and tanks often came up.

There are some references. Those are going to be the references to the

ASTM standards, The American Concrete Institute, and other reference

standards within the documents, and then for each of these 10 sections

there's a commentary section that is helpful to kind of understand the

intent of ASCE-24.

Buildings within ASCE-24 are grouped by flood design class. And that

flood design class goes from more of an agricultural use building to

common residential and commercial use buildings, to more higher occupancy

such as schools, movie theaters, higher occupancy buildings, and then

finally critical facilities such as police stations, fire stations, any

critical and essential facilities within a community, and there are

higher standards based on what that use of that building is, and we’ll

show you an example of that a little bit later.

So, let’s talk about how ASCE-24 defines those coastal flood zones. This

goes back to whether you need to use Section 2, which is the A zone area

or Section 4. In Section 4 you’re going to find the V zones. They’re


5

noted as Zone V on the Flood Insurance Rate Map, and these are areas

where the wave height is 3 feet or greater. In these areas, ASCE-24 as

well as the National Flood Insurance Program require open foundation.

There’s a requirement that compliance in terms of how that elevation is

measured is to the bottom of the lowest horizontal structural floor

member. And as I said, that’s the way they are designated on the Flood

Insurance Rate Map.

This next one, if you've never used ASCE-24 or may not be familiar with

the building code, it’s going to be particularly important. This is a

Coastal A Zone, and this is where the wave heights are between 1.5 feet

and 3 feet. Per ASCE-24, these areas also require open foundations. There

is an allowance for another foundation type called stem walls that are

allowed in these areas, and we’ll talk about those a little bit later.

Compliance is also measured to the bottom of the low horizontal

structural member of the lowest floor. And you’ll know what the Coastal A

Zone is based on the Flood Insurance Rate Map. Newer maps include a line

and that’s shown on the right side of the example FIRM, and that line is

called the limit of moderate wave action, and the area between the limit

of moderate wave action and the line designating Zone V are going to be

those Coastal A Zones. So these are also going to fall in Section 4 of

ASCE-24 as well as the V zone, and the requirement is very similar. The

intent is wanting to have foundations that are not going to be damaged by

wave loads.

Zone A is that nearest extent of the special flood hazard area landward,

and that’s where we have wave heights less than 1.5 feet. This allows the

use of closed foundations as long as those closed foundations have flood

openings in them. There’s also an allowance for fill in these areas, and

that compliance measure that we will see in a few slides is going to be

the top of the lowest floor.

This section is covered in Section 2 of ASCE-24.

So, looking at ASCE-24 and how it relates to the National Flood Insurance

Program, particularly the Code of Federal Regulations 4460.3, the

provisions of ASCE-24 are consistent with the NFIP performance

requirement. ASCE-24 either meets or exceeds those NFIP requirements as

stated in Section 60.3, but I want you to think of ASCE-24 as the new

standard of practice.

Based on those memorandums that we talked about earlier that were adopted

in 2015 for HMA and as of 2016, for the rest of the FEMA program, ASCE-24

is now the standard of practice. So, how does it compare to ASCE-24? How

does 24 relate to the Section 60.3? It provides more specific

requirements. It incorporates the use of the Coastal A Zone that we saw a

couple of slides back with foundation requirements for those Coastal A

Zones.

It requires new construction, as well as those buildings that are

substantially improved or substantially damaged, to incorporate


6

freeboard. Now substantial improvement and substantial damage, probably a

term many of you are familiar with, but just to catch everybody else up,

when we look at substantial building, any building that is in the special

hazard area that has been damaged by anything from flood to fire to any

sort of damage to that building, will be evaluated by the local building

official, and if the repairs to the building constitute 50 percent of the

pre-damaged value of the building, it will be deemed substantially

damaged and the requirement is that it needs to be brought into the

current NFIP requirement, meaning the current flood elevation requirement

as well as the other foundation requirement in the NFIP.

Substantial improvement applies a very similar standard to improvement to

a structure, and if the value of the improvement exceeds 50 percent of

the pre-improved value of the structure, it’s going to be deemed by that

local official to be substantially improved.

If you have questions about substantial improvement or substantial

damage, I would recommend you look at a document called FEMA 758, that’s

P-758, and that provides a desk reference to substantial damage and

substantial improvement.

The other requirement that you’re going to see with ASCE-24 is that it

requires dry floodproofing to include human intervention requirements,

and we’ll talk about those dry floodproofing requirements in a few

slides.

What is it going to require? We just talked about substantial

improvement, substantial damage with new buildings. If we’re looking at

projects that do not constitute new construction, these would be existing

building retrofit. They may not require compliance with ASCE-24 if they

don’t meet that substantial improvement or substantial damage threshold.

You are encouraged to use ASCE-24 to the largest extent possible with

those, but you may not be able to comply with all of those.

I will say that if we are talking about FEMA-funded retrofit projects,

complete compliance with ASCE-24 is preferred, and we’ll talk about how

that relates to elevation projects and dry floodproofing projects as

retrofitting projects in a few minutes. Some of the requirements with

ASCE-24 may be satisfied via documentation, indicating that that portion

of ASCE-24 is deemed to comply; that you tried to apply the spirit of

ASCE-24 to reduce those damages.

Notice that note on the right side; it says that HMA-funded elevation dry

floodproofing projects must comply with ASCE-24 regardless of whether

they are substantially damaged or they trigger substantial improvement.

So if we’re talking about those HMA-funded projects, it doesn’t matter

whether you are meeting those substantial improvement thresholds or that

existing building that was damaged was substantially damaged; if you are

going to use HMA funding, it must comply with ASCE-24.


7

FEMA has a guidance document. This was done in 2013. You’re going to want

to download this document, and we’ll provide you a web link in order to

download this. It differs from the actual ASCE-24 document, so you’re

going to need both. You have to purchase ASCE-24 from the American

Society of Civil Engineers. FEMA does not provide that document for free.

But this guidance document is a FEMA publication which means it’s free.

It provides you a walk-through for each of these project types in very

specific detail and talks about what must comply directly with ASCE-24

versus what aspects of the project may be deemed to comply.

You can make sure by using this guidance document that you can meet those

performance requirements of ASCE-24 with your HMA project. And it kind of

sets some of those guidance in terms of this must comply completely with

ASCE-24 and this may be a deemed to comply portion.

Now that you’re kind of thinking about doing an HMA grant project let’s

talk about what should be included in that application. We will give you

three example statements that would be included in the typical

application in order to ensure that when there's a project review done, a

technical review of your project done, that they can verify that you

understand that you're going to meet the ASCE-24 requirement.

So the first affirmation is from the applicant stating that the scope of

work will be in compliance with ASCE-24. You’ll see that there is

reference to ASCE-24-05, 2005 edition or the most recent edition and that

is ASCE-24, the 2014. Usually note it’s ASCE-24-05 or ASCE-24-14. So we

want to make sure your scope of work is going to comply. The next

statement that we’re going to need is that you understand that prior to

the project closeout, that design documentation and certifications must

be submitted to FEMA to demonstrate that it conforms to ASCE-24, as well

as the established codes and other standards. So this may reference the

International Building Code or International Residential Code as well as

ASCE-7 that you met those requirements, and this includes a specific

statement to ASCE-24 and that requirement, so you want to make sure that

you affirm that it has been met at the end of the project.

The last statement is an affirmation that the applicant understands that

if they fail to comply or incorporate ASCE-24 in their project, that it

is the breach of the terms and conditions of the grant award.

So, it’s basically saying that if you 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 sure that you know that your design

professionals should be familiar with ASCE-24. That they know they need

to incorporate it. This may actually require them to do some additional

construction oversight. They may need to know this at the time so they

can include it in their cost estimate for the design work. The local

officials should also know that they need to be familiar with ASCE-24

both in the design process as well as the construction process so that

they can make sure that they incorporate it.


8

This is covered in that guidance document about what those primary

requirements are that they need to follow. So it’s much, much easier if

you go ahead and read that guidance document.

So what qualifies as this design documentation? A statement or affidavit

from the design professionals, showing that it either complies or it’s

been deemed to comply with those requirements. It is a requirement about

template design. What is a template design? If you're doing an elevation

project and doing several buildings with that elevation project, maybe

20, maybe 30 elevation projects, and you have a standard design that

you’re going to use on most of those, you’re saying that the standard

design meets ASCE-24.

It meets the loading requirement, with respect to 24, for the areas that

it’s going to be applied to. It has proper flood openings that use the

proper material. And those utilities connected up, water service, the

wastewater service, and the electric utilities, meet those ASCE-24

requirements in Section 7.

We also want an affidavit or statement from that local official, and that

local official should be used to using ASCE-24, and this may require you

to use some outside technical services in order to make sure that you can

verify that the design and that construction will meet ASCE-24.

So just in a brief overview of the codes and standards, HMA projects must

comply with those model codes and standards, those either locally or

state-adopted standards, including the consensus code, that it’s going to

meet all of these requirements, including ASCE-24. And we want to make

sure that everybody understands that even if the project is technically

feasible, meaning that it makes good engineering sense, that it’s cost-

effective, that if it doesn’t meet these codes and standards, that it’s

considered in violation of the grant agreement. So we just want to kind

of hammer this point home with this statement.

So, we always recommend with each application, once you get through the

design process, that it undergoes a code compliance check. That it’s

reviewed to make sure that it meets all of the applicable codes. If that

building ends up triggering substantial improvement or substantial damage

requirements, that all of those provisions are met and this includes

compliance with ASCE-24, I'm sorry, this includes compliance with the

International Codes, and there's some very good descriptions in the 2012

as well as 2015 International Code about various categories, building and

work and what may code requirement may kick in with this type of project.

So code adoption versus standard adoption. Based on communities often

regulate with building construction by adoption and enforcing the codes,

and what we want to make sure people are looking at is that we’re talking

about both adopting the code as well as enforcing the code. And those

building codes set minimum requirements for design, materials, and hazard

mitigation. The important point in this bullet is the fact that the

building codes establish a minimum requirement. This does not mean that

you cannot go above the minimum requirement. So FEMA really encourages


9

you to go above these minimum requirements, but the building code set

that minimum requirement.

Numerous standards, these are the design standards such as ASCE-7 and 24,

are incorporated into the building code, and we just provided you an

example from the International Building Code. This is the 2015

international code and you’ll see in Section 1612.4 that it talks about

the design and construction of buildings in flood hazard areas; these are

special flood hazard areas, including coastal high hazard areas and

Coastal A Zones, so there’s that term Coastal A Zone, shall be in

accordance with Chapter Five, that’s the flood provisions of ASCE-7, and

with ASCE-24. So the building codes specifically call out ASCE-4 as well

as the loading requirements in ASCE-7. If your community is not a

community that has a building code, we recommend that you make sure that

you’ve got the proper officials in to review those plans and the

construction of the building, so it may require some extra due diligence

on your part to make sure that you can verify that ASCE-24 has been

incorporated properly.

So let’s talk about these programs in terms of the mitigation options

that we primarily look at with ASCE-24. First we’ll look at elevation;

this is basically raising an existing structure on fill, foundation

elements such as walls, piers, posts, columns, or piles. We have a nice

picture of a building that was raised after Hurricane Katrina. It did

very well with Hurricane Ike. This is on the other side of Lake

Pontchartrain from New Orleans, and we went out after Hurricane Isaac and

evaluated the performance of the building. So this is a really good

example of an elevation project done right.

So looking at the elevation requirements, when we look at the NFIP 60.3,

we’re looking at those minimum NFIP requirements on the left side, with

this house, and then we look at ASCE-24 in terms of those minimum ASCE-24

elevation requirements, whether it’s a flood design class that I talked

about on the right, and it has minimum elevation categories.

So for a residential structure, a single-family home, it would fall in

category 2, so that would be the base flood elevation plus 1 foot of

freeboard, or if the community has a design flood elevation, a higher

requirement than that; whichever of those is higher, gets incorporated

into the building.

So that’s what we’re seeing, and that house in the middle, which is

there’s the ASCE-24, which is the BFE +1 foot, and the community might've

had base flood elevation +2 feet of freeboard, and that’s why you see the

house even a little bit higher. So, this is a good example of the minimum

NFIP requirements versus the minimum ASCE-24 requirement.

So, what other ASCE-24 requirements are required for elevation projects?

Well, there are some allowable foundation types, we’ll show you those

examples in a minute. And that requirement may be dictated by the flood

zone that you’ve got. That flood zone is going to be whatever the current

flood zone is that the building is going to be elevated in.


10

If that zone has changed from Zone A to a Zone V, you’re going to need to

meet those V zone requirements with this current elevation project. So

you now have to have an open foundation.

The foundation must resist the flood loads including flotation, collapse,

lateral movement, and this as it applies to the foundation. So we’re not

talking about the upper stories of those buildings. We’re really focusing

on that foundation.

So, if there’s any existing portions of the foundation, which is

sometimes done, that are reused, or added onto in order to elevate the

building, those existing sections of the foundation must also meet these

ASCE-24 requirements.

Now if you're going to do that, if you end up moving from a Zone A to a

Zone V, then you might have to change the foundation totally from a

closed foundation to an open foundation. If you use foundation walls, it

must include openings and materials that must comply with Section 5 of

ASCE-24 as well as, by reference, the NFIP Technical Bulletin 2, which is

on flood damage-resistant materials. All of those utilities also need to

meet the requirements for utilities in Section 7, in terms of the water,

wastewater, and the electricity.

So, here’s our example on flood zones and what the options are for the

new foundation. As you can see on the top one, we’re looking at fill; you

can do walls, you can do columns or piles, and those differences between

the columns and the piles, those piles are in a deep foundation. And the

minimum elevation requirement is measured to the top of that lowest

floor, which is what you see on the right.

If you go into the areas that have wave action, we’re looking at the V

zone and Coastal A Zone. We’re not allowed to do a foundation on fill

material. We’re not allowed to do an elevation on foundation walls, and

that’s because those flood loads will damage that fill or that foundation

wall such that we could have collapse of the house, and in those areas,

we limit the loads on the building by having those open foundations as

you can see the columns or the piles. Now, the elevation requirement

moving from the top to the lowest floor to the bottom of the lowest

horizontal structural member, which is what you can see on the right side

of the illustration.

Mitigation reconstruction, this is where we have maybe a structure that

historically might be considered for elevation but maybe it’s in such bad

shape that it might not meet the wind loading requirements, and so you

end up thinking about doing mitigation reconstruction, which is moving

everything out of the house, tearing down the house, and then on the same

lot building a new structure. That must meet the NFIP, the HMA

requirement as well as all of the ASCE-24 requirements. So it has to meet

all of those requirements, all the International Code requirements, as

required, by that policy memo that we looked at earlier.


11

It’s allowable under all of the HMA programs, and there’s some square

footage requirements to make sure that that house doesn’t get very much

larger than the house that it replaces. But again what I want to make

sure that you understand is that it must meet all of the ASCE-24

requirements for a new construction, and it should meet by that 2016

memo, it should meet the ASCE-7 requirements. That might mean wind loads,

snow loads, seismic loads, it needs to meet all of those other loading

requirements.

So, let’s talk about dry floodproofing as a last mitigation measure. This

is where we use a combination of measures to prevent water from entering

that building or a portion of that building. And all of these elements

are considered substantially impermeable. Substantially impermeable is

defined as where a wall system or a floor slab prevents the accumulation

of no more than 4 inches of water in that dry floodproof space over a 24-

hour time period without the inclusion of pump systems. So there is a

very defined performance requirement there. ASCE-24 prevents you from

using dry floodproofing as an allowable project type in high flood risk

areas, V zones and Coastal A Zones. So, there's a lot of restriction

anywhere we’ve got wave action or some other fast-moving water, that we

don’t use dry floodproofing as a mitigation measure. You must meet the

elevation requirements. There is a Table 6-1 that’s in ASCE-24 that gives

you those elevation requirements based on flood design class. You must

look at those flood zone restrictions. I talked about the A zones and the

V zones. There’s also restrictions on how fast that water is moving. So

you need to look at the velocity restrictions.

ASCE-24 materials requirements, that’s in Section 5. It applies to all

aspects of the protected area. So all aspects of that dry floodproofed

area it applies to. We talked about the substantially impermeable

requirement. And that’s without the assistance of a pump. ASCE-24

requires you to include pumps, and that’s to get rid of any leaked water

in that area. You must meet some egress requirements to make sure that

there is some way to get out of that building in that dry floodproof

state, and that egress must go over that flood protection elevation.

You must also have a flood warning system or a flood warning time of

about 12 hours, and there’s a very detailed description in the human

intervention section of ASCE-24 about this. All covers, shields, must

meet the flooding load requirements. And there’s also a requirement for a

flood emergency plan, and that’s basically a plan that gets reviewed and

approved by authority having jurisdiction, and it outlines how you’re

going to install any human intervention measures and that includes those

shields and covers.

Another slide, on looking at these 24 requirements, as I said it’s

primarily intended for nonresidential buildings and nonresidential

portions of mixed-use buildings. It is now allowable per ASCE-24 for

residential areas. This also agrees with Section 60.3 of 44 CFR. Utility

systems must be protected if they are outside that dry floodproofed area

because we want to prevent water from getting in these utility lines and

sanitary lines. If there are historic buildings and they’ve got a


12

nonresidential capacity, they must be applied ASCE-24 as closely as

possible without compromising historic designation. We do have some

allowances for historic residential buildings. The point that I want to

make about this, is you want to adhere to ASCE-24 as closely as possible

and pay particular attention to egress requirements in that dry

floodproofed area.

The final thing I want to cover with dry floodproofing is that there is a

flood proofing certificate, and flood proofing certificates apply in

addition to elevation certificates for these dry floodproofed areas. This

is a requirement by the National Flood Insurance Program and the building

codes for dry floodproofed areas. It’s required for flood insurance, so

if you have an NFIP, National Flood Insurance Program, flood insurance

policy, it is required by that.

It is now, as of 2015, an as-built certificate. Meaning that the engineer

or architect that signs and seals that document understands that not only

was it designed to meet ASCE-24 but that it also was built to meet ASCE-

24.

It’s required in the A zones that we talked about, which zone you are

allowed to do dry floodproofing in. It only applies to nonresidential

structures because there is a nonresidential restriction in Section 60.3

or portions of mixed-use buildings. It’s important for building owners to

read and understand this floodproofing certificate because it’s required

for flood insurance, and they will have to have that building recertified

over time. So, they’ll have to have their design professional come back

in later and re-sign and recertify that building.

As I said, it requires compliance with ASCE-24. We covered a lot here.

Just above and beyond looking at grants, we want to talk about the

benefits of ASCE-24 briefly.

When we incorporate the use of ASCE-24, we see reduced building and

building content damages during a base flood event. So if I have a base

flood event, if I just use the 44 CFR 60.3, that would put that lowest

floor that you can see off on the right right at that base flood

elevation, so we get some building flood damages in that flood so it

would incorporate the factor of safety. And over time, as that floodplain

may increase flood height, it includes that factor of safety to cover

future changes in flood height, because that building has very, very

minimal damage in a base flood event, we can reduce residential

displacement time. It’s important to understand that residential

displacement is not covered in an NFIP flood insurance policy. It can

reduce your overall flood insurance premiums. It has potential to reduce

those flood insurance premiums because there is a rate for being at the

base flood elevation, and you’d get premium discounts or may be eligible

for the premium discounts as you get elevation above the BFE +1+2+3+4.

Communities can also look at adopting and enforcing ASCE-24 as a way to

be eligible for community rating system or CRS credits. And those CRS


13

credits kind of further trickle down to the NFIP policyholders as

potential premium discounts.

Here’s a list of the FEMA resources. There’s that guidance document we

talked about at the beginning. There’s a highlight to ASCE-24-14, there’s

also one that we’ve done for ASCE-24-05. We included references for FEMA-

312 which is the homeowner’s guide, 259 which is an engineer’s/designer's

guide to retrofitting residential structures to single-family homes. We

incorporated FEMA-55, which is the coastal construction manual, primarily

looking at residential single-family homes, but it is valuable for

looking at design requirements for both residential and nonresidential

occupancies because it covers how to do flood calculations, particularly

for coastal areas. FEMA-936 is primarily focused on dry floodproofing of

nonresidential buildings, but it also does cover some other flood

mitigation options. And then some references to the NFIP technical

bulletin that we kind of referenced, NFIP Technical Bulletin 2. If you

read ASCE-24 you’re going to see a lot of technical references. Technical

Bulletin 1 on openings and several of these other NFIP technical

bulletins such as 4, as the elevators’ document within ASCE-24, so it’s

valuable to download those NFIP technical bulletins and read those also

for more clarity on the intent of what that guidance document is telling

you.

So that concludes the information I wanted to cover with this

presentation, and I think now we’re going to open it up to questions.

Kirsten Roth: Thanks so much, Adam.

We are getting a few questions regarding a copy of the presentation. And

I just want to remind all of the participants on the line that in the

bottom right-hand corner of the presentation there is a pod called file

share. And a 508 compliant PDF copy of our presentation is available. So

you can just click on that and hit download and pull up a copy of the

presentation straight to your computer.

Ok, we’ve gotten quite a few questions in, so we will not be able to

answer all of them today. We will do our best to answer as many as we can

now, and then we will follow up with a Q&A sheet afterwards and post that

online.

First question, really easy Adam, where can I get a copy of ASCE-24?

Adam Reeder: The best thing to do is use your web browser if you can. I

would browse for the American Society of Civil Engineers; I might

specifically type in ASCE-24 and you can buy it from the American Society

of Civil Engineers. You can either buy a hard copy if that is preferable

or you can get a PDF version of it.

But a purchase from the American Society of Civil Engineers is typically

the way people get a copy of it.

John Ingargiola: This is John Ingargiola, I’ll just add also that you

might want to visit your local building department, and if you just have


14

to look something up, or see the book, as a reference, they might have

it, and also in some public libraries you will find the standards and

codes that are on the library reference shelves. A couple of other ways

to get access to the document.

Kirsten Roth: Thanks, John.

Ok, moving on. How does ASCE-24 relate to ASCE-7?

Adam Reeder: So, the way that ASCE-7 goes through, it goes through

sections on what each of these loads are. So there’s wind loads, as I

said, seismic loads. And Section 5 is a pretty short section to ASCE-7,

and it talks about calculating some of these flood loads. But it

references directly using ASCE-24 to do the flood design. And so ASCE-24

is just a much more fleshed out version of doing flood design. Rather

than if you look in ASCE-7 under wind loading or seismic loading, they’re

very detailed. They decided to do a separate document for flood design

because it allows them to update that document a little bit more quickly.

And then it’s going to cover not only the design but also material

selection, as well as construction requirements. So it actually has a

little bit more detailed requirements in some aspects than even the

seismic or the wind requirement. But it’s a direct reference in ASCE-7

and has been since about 1998.

Kirsten Roth: Great, thanks, Adam.

We have a question. I’m thinking if you could flip back to slide 26 of

your presentation, I do believe it relates to that slide.

OK, so we had a couple of questions regarding square footage. Does the

square footage maximum increase apply to footprint or total square

footage?

Adam Reeder: This is a Mitigation reconstruction. This is slide 25, so

mitigation reconstruction, Brian, are you on?

Brian Willsey: Yeah, I’m here. It does allow you to rebuild to the same

square footage you had previously and you can exceed that by 10 percent

of the original structure as it says in that bullet.

Adam Reeder: I don't know if that answers the question or not.

Brian Willsey: Go ahead.

Adam Reeder: It’s actually covered in the HMA guidance document. It’s in

the addendum. There’s a whole section for Appendix D, as in Delta; it’s

on mitigation reconstruction projects. It provides an overview, it

provides eligibility requirements, it provides cost allowances, what

should be included in that. So I would really encourage you to look at

that HMA addendum guidance document to really understand the allowances

for mitigation reconstruction.


15

Brian Willsey: Good point, Adam. I’d agree and I encourage folks to look

at that too.

Kirsten Roth: Great, thank you. Ok, moving on, does ASCE-24 address

flooding in dense urban areas or is there another resource for that?

Adam Reeder: What ASCE-24 is going to do is, it is going to provide you a

very general overview that isn’t going to matter whether it’s talking

about an urban area or a rural area. I think if you’re in an urban area,

you may want to look at some of the hurricane recovery advisories. There

was a Hurricane Sandy recovery advisory 5 which talks about determining

your flood elevation and going above the minimum elevation requirements.

I would encourage you to look at that because it’ll provide you some good

guidance on looking at coastal storm surge and how to go above the

minimum elevation requirement there.

There was also an update to that done for the Iowa floods that were just

last year, 2016. We’re in 2018, so I guess two years ago, there was a

recovery advisory for looking at a riverine structure going above the

minimum elevation requirements. I think you'll find a lot of the

information that you want to know there in terms of some of the nuances

of looking at how buildings may impact your flood elevation requirement.

Kirsten Roth: Thanks, Adam. Next question: will ASCE-24 be required for

all 2017 flood disaster recovery programs?

John Ingargiola: This is John Ingargiola. I think as we mentioned at the

beginning, the latter part of 2016, FEMA issued the FEMA building codes

directive, with those two policies, Public Assistance minimum standards

and the disaster risk reduction in the standards.

So for the disasters after that time, these hazard resistant provisions

and the latest codes apply. That was the latter part of 2016. And so yes,

from that point forward including 2017, these hazard provisions and these

codes and standards apply to these eligible projects in declared

disasters.

Kirsten Roth: Thanks John. We have a questions and it says: many of our

rural local governments don’t adopt or necessarily enforce building

codes. Is there a mechanism in ASCE policies to require building codes

for flood zones?

Brian Willsey: There’s not a requirement within ASCE-7 or ASCE-24 about

requiring the use in flood zones. And the way it would be required is, as

we said, with projects that are in, that have been through natural

disasters that may be applying for FEMA grants or maybe applying for FEMA

pre-disaster grants, so they would be required for those. In terms of

code adoption, as we stated earlier, adopting ASCE-24 could make that

community eligible for CRS credit, and that likely would behoove them to

go ahead and adopt those codes and standards in order to get those CRS


16

credits. You want to say more this, John? Oh sure, just a follow-up. And

Adam’s correct.

The requirement to apply ASCE-24 applies specifically to that project. So

that’s regardless of whether the jurisdiction has codes or not. So, it

applies to the project and usually there are design professionals

involved in these projects and standards like ASCE-24 and ASCE-7 are kind

of the customary standards they use in design and construction.

So, those folks are very familiar with it. As I pointed out I think at

the beginning, we’re seeing growing numbers of communities across the

nation adopting these codes with these reference standards, so in many

places it’s business as usual. In other places there’s a learning curve.

But it all comes down to whoever that design professional is involved in

that specific project, they’d be expected to apply and use the flood

standard.

But I want to be very clear on this point right now, not to detract any

from the value of ASCE-24, but that memo covers FEMA programs but it is

not adoption of ASCE-24; it is not a requirement of an NFIP community in

terms of complying with the NFIP right now.

So it behooves the community to adopt that 24; it’s going to be required

for these mitigation grant projects, but it is not a requirement in order

to comply with those NFIP requirements being in an NFIP community. So

just to make sure there is no misinformation about that right now, with

this, I wanted to make that clarification point.

Kirsten Roth: Thank you so much, Adam and John and Brian. We are pushing

up against our 3 PM time to close at the webinar, but before we do, we

have a few short polling questions that we were hoping all of you could

take a moment to answer. Over all how would you rate this webinar? How

useful was the information? How many people are participating with you?

If you learned something, and what other future webinar topics would you

like to hear from us at Hazard Mitigation Assistance? So if you could

please just take a moment and fill those out, and just as a reminder, we

did provide the presentation in the bottom right-hand corner under file

share. You can select using ASCE-24 and hit download file and get a copy

of the presentation to your computer.

Thank you all for joining and thank you again, Adam, John, and Brian for

participating and presenting on the webinar.

So, thanks everyone, and have a great day. [Event Concluded]

hma webinar (1 25 2018): using asce 24 for hazard ... › media-library-data › ...using asce-24...

Documents