14 DAY TRIAL // According to the conclusions of a 2-year technical investigation, improving the safety standards for building design and construction efforts could contribute significantly to reducing the death toll and material damages associated with tornado events.
The document, compiled by scientists with the US National Institutes of Standards and Technology, says that public shelters and public communications need to remain a priority in both disaster prevention and disaster response. The study reveals more details about how this can be achieved.
NIST experts released the new paper on December 3, following on the heels of a November 21 document that proposed a series of guidelines and recommendations for increasing tornado safety. The second report lists a series of official recommendations of how to make the US safer against tornadoes.
As soon as the public comment period expires on the two papers, NIST experts plan to contact relevant authorities and agencies around the country, and start developing new model building codes that would lay the foundation for nationally-accepted tornado safety standards.