Not only does the Insurance Services Office (ISO) rate fire departments, it also rates building code effectiveness. The Building Code Effectiveness Grading Schedule (BCEGS) assesses community building codes and their enforcement, with special emphasis on mitigation of losses from hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, and other natural hazards.
Areas with well-enforced, up-to-date codes have a better loss experience, which can be reflected in lower insurance rates. Lessening catastrophe-related damage and ultimately lowering insurance costs provides an incentive for local and state governments to enforce their building codes rigorously — especially as they relate to windstorm and earthquake damage.
Just like the ISO fire protection class, the BCEGS rating is based on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the best and 10 being the worst. ISO develops advisory rating credits that apply to ranges of BCEGS classifications (1-3, 4-7, 8-9, 10). So a community that is in the 1-3 zone would receive the best rate credit, while on in the 8-9 would be charged more for insurance. A community that refuses to participate would fall into the same category as a eight or a nine (called a nine eight, and written as 98).
The BCEGS program assesses a community’s building code enforcement in three areas:
Code administration
Plan review
Field inspection
The classification uses 1,243 data points to calculate two scores: One for one- and two-family residential construction, and another for commercial or industrial construction. The scores are assigned a scaled class rating of 1 (exemplary commitment to building code enforcement) to 10. The classifications apply to communities under the jurisdiction of each building code department. Here is the nationwide breakdown of BCEGS ratings:
The ratings vary by state. In Florida, the lowest BCEGS rating is in the Florida Keys, which has a 5 rating. The rest of the state is 4 or higher. Most of the coastal counties are a 1 or a 2. In Tennessee, more than half of the state is rated a 6 or lower.
The states with the lowest ratings are Kansas, South Dakota, and New Mexico, which are all an 8 for residential buildings. The highest rating for residential is California as a 3. Florida averages to a 4.
Keep in mind that the BCEGS doesn’t just rate building codes, but is also a rating of how vigorously they are enforced. California receives such a high rating not only because of their strict earthquake code, but in how strict they are in enforcing the code.
The BCEGS is an important datapoint used by insurance companies in determining the risk they face when insuring property against natural hazards.
Every fire department in the nation is ranked and graded by insurance companies. The Insurance Services Office (ISO) rating, also known as the Public Protection Classification (PPC) program, is a measurement of each community’s fire preparedness. The ISO rating is based on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the best and 10 being the worst.
The ISO rating of your area is important for calculating insurance rates. Fire and lightning account for almost 25 percent of all homeowners insurance losses, with the average fire and lightning claim resulting in $83,519 in insured losses. Insurance companies know that fire losses are the single biggest cause of large insurance payouts. This is why the ISO rating is a major factor in determining your insurance rates.
The rating is based on data collected about the quality of public fire protection, including: emergency communications, fire department capabilities, water supply systems, and community efforts to reduce the risk of fire. Each thing that your community does to handle fire preparedness earns points. The points are totaled, and the score is used to determine the ISO rating of the area.
Things that you wouldn’t usually think of earn points. A backup generator for the radio repeaters that the fire department uses, the amount of fire hose on the local fire engine, the average distance of homes to the closest fire hydrant, all of these are accounted for when the score is calculated.
Each department is inspected every ten years, and sometimes upon request, to determine their ISO rating. When I worked for the fire department, we were inspected about a year before I retired. I was the coordinator to ensure that our fire trucks got the maximum points that they could for the inspection. (That’s what having a Bachelor’s in Public Safety Management gets you- more work.) I took a copy of the sheet that listed what points were available and made sure that we got the maximum points. Things like how many gallons of foam, how many feet of 3 inch hose, and how many spare air tanks for breathing apparatus were carried on each truck were all worth points. I spent months doing an inventory and placing equipment on the trucks to make sure we got as many points as possible.
Calculating the ISO Rating
The ISO uses a manual called the Fire Suppression Rating Schedule (FSRS) to determine what points your community scores. There are four different areas where your department can earn points:
Fire Department: The amount and condition of fire trucks, what equipment they carry, and the training level of firefighters is used to calculate points. For example: a full time firefighter counts for three times as many points as a volunteer. How complete are the department’s training records? How often does the department maintain the trucks, hose, and other equipment? All of those things earn points, and the points earned in this category make up 50% of your community’s score.
Water Supply: Does your community use ponds for water supply, or does it have city water? How many hydrants are there? How far are houses from those hydrants, on average? Is there water storage? How much pressure? Over a two hour period, what is the minimum water volume in gallons per minute that the fire department can deliver to any point in their service area? Water supply is 40% of your community’s score.
Communications: How well does the fire department receive and respond to emergency calls? How many call takers are there in the emergency call center? Does the center have computer aided dispatch? Does the call center and radio system have a backup generator? Communications is 10% of your community’s score.
Risk Reduction: How does your community prevent fires? Fire safety education, fire prevention techniques, building codes, and fire investigation all play a role here. This category is an “extra credit” category, since the rest of the score already adds up to 100%.
Any given community adds up to a total possible 105.5%. The biggest category is the fire department, which accounts for 50 percent of the score, but the hardest to improve is an area’s water supply. A lack of fire hydrants and access to an adequate amount of water cannot be easily remedied and would require extensive infrastructure development to fix. That, combined with the fact that volunteers earn far fewer points than do full time city departments, make the ISO ratings for rural communities served by volunteer departments much lower than their city based counterparts. The reason for this is simple- insurance companies have far more and greater fire losses in rural areas than they do in urban areas.
An ISO rating of a 10 is no fire department to speak of at all. A rating of a 9, the easiest one to get, is essentially a volunteer department consisting of four volunteers with a pickup truck and a fire extinguisher. The hardest jumps to make for a fire department is the jump from a 9 to an 8, and the jump from a 2 to a 1.
An ISO rating of 1 is the rarest, with only about 1 percent of fire departments earning the top rating. There are less than 500 fire departments nationwide that have an ISO 1 rating. In Florida, departments that are ISO 1 include: Orlando, Palm Beach, Kissimmee, Miami-Dade, Clermont, Deland, Key West, Pompano Beach, Lauderhill, Melbourne, Apopka, Stuart, Miami Beach, Lake Mary, Fort Lauderdale, and others.
It gets even more complicated. Some departments serve an area with hydrants, but also include an area without them. In those cases the department gets a hybrid rating, with areas that are more than 5 road miles from the nearest fire station, or more than 1,000 feet from a fire hydrant receiving a higher ISO rating than those within those limits. For example, one department in Central Florida that I am aware of is an ISO 5/9. That is, the department is an ISO 5 in areas within 5 road miles of a fire station and 1,000 linear feet of a hydrant, but an ISO 9 outside of those limits.
A great example of this is in Osceola county, which has a rating of 3/10. Meaning that if you are in Osceola county are are more than 5 miles from a station or 1,000 feet from a hydrant, the ISO says you really don’t have a fire department. I would be pissed, because you pay the same taxes and fire fees, but the county has written your property off if you are in a rural area. Those poor bastards in Yeehaw Junction are paying for things that they will never receive.
In general, residential fire insurance rates aren’t affected by any ISO rating that is better than a 4. ISO ratings of 1 through 3 primarily affect commercial and industrial insurance rates. This means that a department in a residential community would be wasting money chasing any rating better than a 4 or a 5.
You can find the ISO rating of your local area by going to your fire department’s web page. Nearly every department lists their ISO rating there. If they don’t have it on the website, you can call and ask them.
I am stunned at the number of people reading this blog who think that those who are richer than they, or who choose to live differently than they should somehow be forced to comply with their own way of life.
I guess I shouldn’t be. People who claim to support “freedom” only want freedoms that they agree with. No different than people who only want free speech with which they agree.
So far this week, we have heard from people who want to eliminate fat people, people who own expensive homes, people who don’t eat like you, and other freedoms. All because they don’t like paying insurance.
The wannabe dictator cites the state law 870.044 almost verbatim, but leaves out the important part:
870.044 Automatic emergency measures.—Whenever the public official declares that a state of emergency exists, pursuant to s. 870.043, the following acts shall be prohibited during the period of said emergency throughout the jurisdiction:
(1) The sale of, or offer to sell, with or without consideration, any ammunition or gun or other firearm of any size or description.
(2) The intentional display, after the emergency is declared, by or in any store or shop of any ammunition or gun or other firearm of any size or description.
(3) The intentional possession in a public place of a firearm by any person, except a duly authorized law enforcement official or person in military service acting in the official performance of her or his duty.
Note that the pertinent part was left out- the state of emergency has to be declared pursuant to 870.043. What does that particular law have to say on the subject? State statute 870.043 reads:
870.043 Declaration of emergency.—Whenever the sheriff or designated city official determines that there has been an act of violence or a flagrant and substantial defiance of, or resistance to, a lawful exercise of public authority and that, on account thereof, there is reason to believe that there exists a clear and present danger of a riot or other general public disorder, widespread disobedience of the law, and substantial injury to persons or to property, all of which constitute an imminent threat to public peace or order and to the general welfare of the jurisdiction affected or a part or parts thereof, he or she may declare that a state of emergency exists within that jurisdiction or any part or parts thereof.
The state of emergency in Florida wasn’t due to an act of violence or a flagrant and substantial defiance of, or resistance to, a lawful exercise of public authority. It was due to an approaching hurricane. Therefore, the entire declaration of this tyrant was unlawful.
This is what tyrants do- they twist the law to suit their own purposes.
Peter and Aesop both ask the same question: Should the government ‘let’ people build a house in an area known to be prone to disasters like hurricanes? The reasons that they give:
it costs local and state authorities huge amounts to maintain access to such areas to protect them, fire and rescue departments to aid those living there during disasters, etc.;
Insurance companies typically won’t insure against hazards that are so easily foreseen, meaning that either they have to be compelled to do so through legislation, and/or subsidized to do so from taxpayers’ coffers, and/or have state-aided insurance plans such as flood insurance to cover the risks they will not.
There’s all the infrastructure (roads, power, water, sewage processing and disposal, maintenance, etc.). That’s not just capital cost to provide them all, but ongoing running costs year in, year out.
There’s the expense of subsidizing and/or providing insurance coverage.
There’s the burden of restoring services to such areas when natural disasters disrupt them (which also means the resources devoted to doing that can’t be used in other areas where they may be needed, imposing additional delays and costs).
There’s the additional bureaucracy and complexity of legislation and/or regulation accompanying all of the above.
These positions seem reasonable. They are also tyrannical and wrong. If we were to grant government the power to declare that you can’t live somewhere because it is too expensive to provide services there, then you open the door to government getting involved and ruling over your entire life.
Owning guns is too dangerous, and therefore illegal. So is smoking, drinking alcohol, eating salt, eating fatty foods, and not exercising 1 hour per day. SCUBA and sky diving, contact sports, owning a car that is capable of speeds more than 40 miles per hour, as well as roller skates, bicycles, and air conditioning (Climate Change!) are all dangerous.
Governments were created, among other things, to provide for the common defense. Services like fire, police, and rescue are properly part of that response. Don’t tell me how we should have for profit fire and rescue services- we tried that, and it plain doesn’t work. (Seriously- read the link before you comment)
Water, power, roads, and all of those other services are paid for by companies that have been granted a monopoly by the government. They aren’t paid for by taxes in many cases, but by fees passed on to consumers.
Back to the subject- when the government decides that it’s most cost effective to make everyone live in tenements in downtown Detroit, come back and explain to me how you didn’t see that coming. But hey, you can sign on to the Green New Deal if you prefer.
As the hurricane passed by, we lost power for a little bit and thanks to the powerwalls, we weren’t even aware that it went out for a few minutes. The lights flickered, and we lost Internet. The Internet came back up within 30 seconds or so. I think it was the small blip of the batteries taking over that caused the router to reboot. I have to see about a small UPS that will fit in the QI panel. When the power went out, the app told me that we had a total of 15 hours of backup power available, and that was without taking steps to reduce consumption. I am doing research to see how to extend that time.
It does create a bit of a security concern, being one of the minority of houses with power while everyone else is without. We aren’t the only ones, though. A quarter of the houses within a half mile of the house have solar, but not all of them have battery backups, which means that they paid about half as much as we did for their systems, but they don’t work when the grid is down.
The month for power was good: we generated 1352 kWh and used 1272 kWh. That means we exported 80 kWh more power to the grid than we used, and that will be banked as a credit on our power bill for the next year.
Average power generated was 43.6 kWh per day, with a high of 58.0 kWh and a low of 18.3 kWh in any given day. Our power bill was the $30 minimum bill, plus the ever present taxes, for a total of $42. I view the entire bill as being a tax, since we are required by law to be hooked up to the grid, and the power company requires us to pay a minimum fee of $30. Without solar, our power bill would have been about $225.
Overall, I think it’s a good system and was a good buy. I have backup power and the system offsets my power bills.
A few years ago, a hurricane passed over my house, and even though the weather service was telling us that the winds were hurricane strength, the wind didn’t look that bad, even when the eyewall was over my house. So I bought a personal weather station.
I would very much like to see the weather stations that were exactly on the coast to see what the real winds were. I think that the NWS has been overhyping these things for years. I do know that “subtropical” storms were not included in named storms until 2002. What does this mean? In the 29 hurricane seasons that subtropical storms have been added to the naming system, there have been an average of 16 named storms per year, with only 4 of those seasons seeing fewer than 12 storms. In the 19 seasons prior to 2002, there were an average of 11 named storms per year, with ten of those seasons having fewer than 12 storms.
So why did the criteria for naming storms change? If you look at the statistics for named storms, something jumps out at you. The number of storms drastically increases beginning in 1995. What changed in 1995? Was it global warming?
Nope. The director of the National Hurricane Center, Doctor Bob Sheets, retired in 1995. The director of the NHC sets the criteria by which storms are classified. Politics, or science? Now the left can point to the larger number of named storms and blame the climate change boogieman.
I am not saying that the people who are dealing with damage are not suffering. I am saying that the NHC is overstating the strength of these storms in order to support pushes for “green new deal” type laws.
The problem is that every single one of the five rifles is currently in use and is roughly a 5.56mm. No mention of the Mauser, or even the Mosin Nagant. More than 100 million copies of those weapons were made, and they have been used in virtually every armed conflict for about 100 years, including two world wars.
Those of you who may not live on the Gulf Coast, Georgia, or the Carolinas may not be familiar with the true power of a hurricane. Even on the east coast, if you live north of the outer banks of North Carolina, you may have lived through a hurricane, but still don’t know just how powerful they can get.
Hurricanes are categorized by their power on what is called the Saffir-Simpson scale. The lowest is a category one, with winds of 75 to 95 miles per hour, and the highest is a Category 5 with winds over 155 miles per hour. Each category roughly doubles the power of a hurricane, meaning that a Cat 5 hurricane is about 16 times as powerful as a Cat 1.
Threats
Hurricanes have four major ways of doing damage: wind, rain, tornados, and storm surge.
Although many people focus on the wind speed, the highest winds in a hurricane are usually within a few miles of the eyewall, and therefore don’t affect many people. Unless the eyewall, which is located with 10 miles or so of the center of the storm, passes over you, you won’t see the highest winds. Here in Florida, we have pretty stringent building codes and all homes have to be built to withstand 115 mile per hour winds. Because hurricanes weaken once the center comes ashore, and the highest winds are located near the center, the highest winds tend to be within 30 miles or so of the coast. We are pretty safe from high winds. What is dangerous about wind is that it blows debris around, and it blows for hours. Sometimes up to 12 hours nonstop.
When wind blows over the ocean for long distances, it pushes water in front of it. When that pushed water encounters land, it builds up into what is called storm surge. The tides and waves build on top of this, so a 5 foot storm surge combined with a 3 foot tide and 10 foot waves means that homes will flood miles inland with up to 18 feet of water. Luckily, we are dozens of miles inland and about 100 feet above sea level, so storm surge isn’t an issue.
Hurricanes also spawn tornados. Not much you can do about those, but they don’t affect a lot of people, comparatively.
The largest threat from a Hurricane is rain. Here in Florida, we are surrounded by swamp and we are used to torrential rain. Still, 18 to 20 inches of rain is no laughing matter. When we built our house, we picked a spot that was ten feet above the nearest wetlands. We are not in a flood prone area, and I doubt we will have problems.
Let’s compare categories to see what they do:
Category One Storm
So-called Superstorm Sandy hit New Jersey as a Category One hurricane, with 80 mile per hour winds, a 6 foot storm surge, and 12 inches of rain. People from that region still talk about this storm as if they now know what a hurricane does. Piffle. The gulf coast residents don’t even close schools for a Cat 1.
Category Two Storm
The strongest storm to hit Virginia in the past few decades was Isabel in 2021, and even then it made landfall in North Carolina as a Category 2 storm. During Isabel, Hampton roads got winds of 70 to 80 miles per hour, about 15 inches of rain, and a storm surge of about 8 feet.
The storm surge and rising waters flooded the Midtown Tunnel between Norfolk and Portsmouth with 44 million gallons of water. Workers trying to secure the floodgates on the Norfolk side barely escaped. The resulting damage closed the tunnel for nearly a month. This is more an indication that people in the area just don’t know how to prepare for a hurricane than it is the power of this storm, as the floodgates should have already been closed.
Category Three Storm
Go up just one category to a Cat3 Hurricane. This is the beginning of what they call “major hurricane.” For an example, take a look at 2023’s Hurricane Idalia, which hit Keaton Beach in the big bend area of Florida with 115 mile per hour winds, a 9 foot storm surge, and 20 inches of rain. Another great example of a Category Three was Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
One of my photos from Hurricane Katrina
Category Four Storm
Up one more category to Cat 4, and you see Hurricane Ian in 2022, which hit Fort Meyers Beach with 150 mile per hour winds, a 13 foot storm surge, and pelted the Florida peninsula with up to 26 inches of rain.
Aftermath of Ian in Florida
Category Five Storm
Luckily, the US doesn’t see this strong of a storm very often. Only four Cat 5 hurricanes are recorded to have ever hit the US- Michael hitting Florida in 2018, Andrew hitting Florida in 1992, Camille hitting shore in 1969 almost exactly where Katrina would in 2005, and the 1935 unnamed Labor Day Hurricane that struck the Florida Keys. Note that three of the four strongest storms recorded to have hit the US all hit Florida. I actually have lived through three of them- all but the 1935 storm.
Andrew hit Florida with 165 mile per hour winds, a 17 foot storm surge, but was a relatively “dry” hurricane with only about 7 inches of rain. Contrast that with Hurricane Michael, which dropped 13 inches of rain on the Florida panhandle. Still, it seems that Cat 5 hurricanes are so intense that they don’t drop a lot of rain.
Ray Dalio says America’s $35,327,646,622,839 national debt will continue to grow no matter who wins the race for the White House. The national debt is bound to be ignored while the government uses inflationary policies to reduce the real burden of its debt, according to the Billionaire.
“We have an enormous amount of debt, and it’s going to keep increasing. And one man’s debts are another man’s liabilities… Nobody’s going to deal with the debt policy. That’s going to end up being monetized down the path.”
Regardless of the electoral outcome, Dalio sees the US heading towards a more “fragmented” existence, where portions of the country look to their state governments for leadership due to “irreconcilable differences” with the next administration.
The US dollar has to be inflated so we can pay on our enormous debt with less valuable, inflated dollars.
Buy PMs, Real Estate, and other things that have intrinsic value. The dollar is headed for the end.
