Windstorm impact reduction

News and Updates

NIST’s Long Phan and Marc Levitan Receive Service to America Medal

September 10, 2024

The award recognizes their efforts to develop standards and building codes to make structures resistant to tornadoes.

Tornadoes Are Deadly. These New Building Codes Will Save Lives.

July 9, 2024

NIST research has led to the first building code provision for tornado resilience.

Two men stand a table in a warehouse space, looking at a broken piece of concrete that one is holding.

NIST to Provide Public Update on Hurricane Maria and Champlain Towers South Investigations During Advisory Committee Meeting March 6-7, 2024

March 4, 2024

The meeting will be livestreamed each day.

Projects and Programs

National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program Coordination

Ongoing

Objective - To support NIST's statutory Lead Agency role of coordinating National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program (NWIRP) research and implementation activities. What is the new technical idea? This project supports coordination, management, and leadership of the National Windstorm Impact

Worker looks over the disaster site at New York City's World Trade Center

Structural Performance for Multi-hazards Program

Ongoing

Objective: To develop and deploy advances in measurement science to enhance the robustness of buildings and infrastructure to natural and manmade hazards. What is the technical idea? The fundamental new idea is that structural robustness can be significantly enhanced by developing reliable

Assessment of Available Collapse Simulation Methods for Use in Performance-Based Seismic Engineering Project

Completed

Objective - This project supports improved Performance-Based Seismic Engineering (PBSE) via evaluating the capabilities of commercial structural analysis software to simulate structural sidesway collapse accurately. This project: Identifies and assesses critical issues concerning nonlinear

Coastal Inundation: Hazard Characterization and Structural Design

Ongoing

Objective - To develop next-generation methods and tools to better characterize coastal inundation hazards, associated loads, and response of structures, thus enabling performance-based standards for designing structures that resist coastal inundation. What is the new technical idea? Current design

Publications

State of the Art and Research Needs in Design for Tornadoes: Structural Engineering Institute Workshop Report

September 30, 2024

Author(s)

Donald Scott, Jennifer Goupil, Shane Crawford, Alex Griffin, Cherylyn Henry, Marc Levitan, Franklin Lombardo, John van de Lindt, Peter Vickery

The Structural Engineering Institute (SEI) has a long history of working with NIST and other federal partners to improve ASCE/SEI 7 Minimum Design Loads and

Improving Windstorm and Tornado Resilience: Recommendations for One- and Two-Family Residential Structures

February 21, 2023

Author(s)

Brian O'Connor, Karah Osburn, Jennifer Mitchell, Heidi Szabo, Marc Levitan

The purpose of this fact sheet is to provide a brief overview of building envelope considerations and load path improvements to reduce damages to wood framed

Design Guide for New Tornado Load Requirements in ASCE 7-22

January 30, 2023

Author(s)

Erik Perfetto, James Taylor, Karah Osburn, Brian O'Connor, Marc Levitan, Jennifer Mitchell

This instructional guidance is for design professionals and building officials to help them determine when a building or other structure is required to be

Development and Analysis of a Database of Tornado Impacts on U.S. Critical Facilities

May 17, 2022

Author(s)

Nicholas de Toledo, Marc Levitan, Jamil Malik, Warren Stewart, Katherine Johnson, Patrick Crawford

Despite the significant hazard that tornadoes pose, much remains to be learned about the impacts of tornadoes on critical facilities in the United States. While

Awards

Marc Levitan Receives the National Storm Shelter Association (NSSA) Kiesling Award

Presented this year to Marc Levitan of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), recently the (Acting) Director fo the

Marc Levitan Receives Top 25 Newsmakers of 2021 - Award of Excellence

For his successful efforts getting the first-ever requirements for tornado-resistant design adopted in the 2022 version of ASCE 7