New hospitals, schools and apartments have more powerful flood protection standards
International Code Council has approved stronger building standards to protect hospitals, schools and other structures from flooding
Barker Reservoir and Buffalo Bayou Dam are on display in Houston, Texas on August 30, 2017. The city of Houston has experienced severe flooding in some areas due to accumulation of historic rainfall levels.
ClimateWire | Many new hospitals, schools, apartment buildings and other buildings will be built with extra flood protection under a massive revision of the International Building Code approved on Friday.
Nonprofits writing model building codes widely used in the United States have taken steps to expand areas where elevation is needed, requiring that some newly built structures should far exceed local flood levels.
“This is transformational,” said Daniel Cox, an engineering professor at Oregon State University, who led a panel of experts who wrote and proposed new flood standards. “It will change the way we mitigate floods in the US.”
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The standard was overwhelmingly approved at a hearing in Orlando by a committee of the International Code Council, a code-making group.
The council will vote in 2026, with the new standards taking effect in 2027.
Standards apply Only the states and other jurisdictions that employ them. In many cases, states are slow to adopt new building standards. Some people face pressure from building groups to reject the latest standards for modernizing new buildings while increasing construction costs.
“Currently, hospitals and fire stations are built on the same level of protection as hot dog stands.” – Rob Moore, Senior Policy Analyst
Council committee approval is a victory for flood experts, environmentalists and insurance groups, saying that additional construction costs are more than paying themselves by reducing future flood damage.
“This represents a much-needed critical leap in flood resilience,” Aaron Davis, assistant executive director of Buildstrong America, told the committee on Friday. This group is a coalition of consumer groups, architects, insurance groups, and other advocates of modernized building codes.
Chad Belginis, executive director of the National Flood Plains Association, said flood standards will curb the rise in flood damage around the world as climate change strengthens storms and developments in flood zones.
This standard was opposed by the National Association of Housing Builders, the National Council of Multifamily Housing, and the American Association of Medical Engineering.
“Our concern about this is that these will increase the cost of construction for new construction,” Jonathan Flannery, senior associate director of the Association for Regulation Affairs, told the committee.
East Houston Medical Center, I-10 and the Gonzalez Family and Occupational Medicine, are still standing during Hurricane Harvey on Wednesday, August 30, 2017.
Juan Deleon/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
One of the criteria approved on Friday will expand local flood zones to ensure more structures are subject to elevation requirements.
Flannery said the requirement would prevent the elevation requirements from finding interiors of flood zones that increase construction costs.
“If the community is considering building a facility, and it could be built with 1% less than the outside of the flood zone, they’ll do that. But they may need to be in the flood zone area,” Flannery said.
Carol Friedland, a construction expert at Louisiana State University, told the committee that flood standards would increase the number of buildings in flood zones by 5%. It also places a “conservative cost increase” of 0.5% to 2% on construction.
However, the standards significantly reduce the chances of flood damage to the building, Friedland said.
The standards apply to basic buildings such as residential and commercial structures, as well as “critical facilities” including “somewhat important facilities” such as schools and hospitals. Flood standards are higher for more important buildings.
“Currently, hospitals and fire departments are built on the same level of protection as hot dog stands,” Rob Moore, senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told the committee.
The committee approved the flood standards three days after another council committee rejected a proposal to raise the standard for the newly built home.
The Homebuilders Association strongly opposed the need to increase the altitude of more homes due to the added construction costs.
The association is opposed to similar efforts by the federal government under former President Joe Biden. Biden-era policies that required promotion of structures built with federal disaster aid were cancelled by President Donald Trump.
Reprinted from E&E News With permission from Politico, LLC. Copyright 2025. E&E News provides essential news to energy and environmental experts.
