Ben Harris, IEG Sr. Executive Director of Engineering, recently presented at a High-Performance Construction Summit in Frisco, Texas. He shared information on storm shelters to representatives of school districts across the country, structures that are commonly found in schools and critical emergency operations facilities like fire, rescue, ambulance and police stations.
Additionally, Ben highlighted the new tornado load case that was added into the 2024 IBC. This new load case applies to all non-shelter building areas, for Risk Category III school facilities and Risk Category IV healthcare facilities, anywhere east of the Rockies from Canada to Mexico. These tornado pressures increase as a building’s footprint area increases, and they can be much higher than traditional wind pressures.
Ben provided an introduction to ICC 500, giving insights as a Voting Member of ICC 500 and former President of the National Storm Shelter Association (NSSA). What’s more, he described how schools can obtain federal funding for hazard mitigation with safe rooms, different structures than storm shelters.
He also described the design process that MOREgroup’s family of brands collaboratively follows to consider holistically the initial construction costs and the ongoing operational and maintenance costs for structure, mechanical, electrical, plumbing and architectural systems on each project. This kind of collaboration comes from the architecture, structural and MEP engineering all being a part of MOREgroup!
