Alex Cary, FORTIFIED Market Development Manager at The Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS), shares insights about how to build better to minimize storm damage.

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Transcript:

00;00;00;01 - 00;00;16;09
Hal Needham
Coming up next on the GeoTrek podcast, I would imagine in a place like South Alabama where you had a lot of fortified roofs, you had a Category two hurricane impact, all of a sudden. The referrals are probably just taking off, right, because you're telling their grandma and their aunt like, Hey, get a fortified roof. That's what I had.

00;00;16;09 - 00;00;17;27
Hal Needham
And I did. I had no storm damage.

00;00;18;10 - 00;00;30;00
Alex Cary
We had one contractor that three days after Sally had 800 voice messages because everybody was pointing their friends to him and he couldn't keep up with the demand from them.

00;00;31;26 - 00;00;55;23
Hal Needham
Here we are in the heart of hurricane season and it's a great time to reflect on how we can build better to minimize the impacts of intense storms on the build environment. Hey, everyone. I'm Dr. Hal host of the GeoTrek podcast. And this episode, we're going to learn about the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety, or IHS and the innovative work they're doing to find ways we can build better to mitigate storm damage on the build environment.

00;00;56;06 - 00;01;20;20
Hal Needham
Our guest is Alex Carey. Fortify market development manager at eBay. You're going to love this episode if you have a passion for building. Better to minimize the losses from extreme weather or natural disasters on the build environment. If you're new to the podcast, Gottschalk travels the world to find stories about the relationship between people and nature. Our stories investigate the impact of extreme weather, disasters and hazards on individuals and communities.

00;01;21;01 - 00;01;39;24
Hal Needham
Our goal is to help you better understand how the world works so you can take actions to make yourself, your family and your community more resilient from all the extreme favorite podcast platform, your subscription helps us mark progress, which enables us to make more professional partnerships moving forward and ensures many more episodes of the Geo Trek podcast in the future.

00;01;40;08 - 00;02;13;12
Hal Needham
Now let's get out there in the storm zone and explore with Alex Carey. We'll learn a lot from her about the impacts of different natural hazards on the built environment. A more formal introduction of this week's guest, Alex Carey is the fortified market development manager at the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety, or IHS, providing communities across the Gulf Coast and nationally with a dedicated expert collaborating with active and potential fortified program participants to bring sustainable and resilient construction practices into vulnerable communities.

00;02;14;02 - 00;02;41;23
Hal Needham
Alex has worked in the home building industry for over 20 years and is now involved in leadership roles at the local, state and national level, including as an NAHB national delegate. She also serves on the board of the nonprofit Smart Home America that is helping communities across the country to become stronger and more resilient. Alex is a licensed homebuilder in Alabama and recently completed construction of her own fortified gold home.

00;02;42;02 - 00;02;45;03
Hal Needham
Really excited to have you on the podcast, Alex. Thank you for joining us.

00;02;45;14 - 00;02;49;04
Alex Cary
Very glad to be here. It's great to meet you. Great to be here. Thank you very much.

00;02;49;19 - 00;03;07;08
Hal Needham
I'm really interested to talk to you. I know our audience will be very interested because they're they're very interested in the impacts of storms and how that relates to the built environment. You have a lot of experience. You know, you're there with eBay, you're the market development manager, and IBEX is well known for their work in mitigating losses on buildings.

00;03;07;08 - 00;03;24;22
Hal Needham
But maybe we could start with your back story. You know, this isn't the first organization you've worked with that works on mitigating losses from natural hazards on the built environment. You've also worked with Habitat for Humanity and Smart Home America. Could you share the back story about the work that you did with them and then how eventually that led to your work with IHS?

00;03;25;04 - 00;03;55;18
Alex Cary
Yeah, absolutely. And honestly, my work with Habitat really started after Ivan, been Katrina. Ironically enough, here I find myself all these years later and really fully immersed in the disaster space. But yeah, I started with Habitat right around the time that I just wow, Hurricane Katrina literally was heading. I had just come on as construction manager and we had a huge influx of need after that because there were so many affordable houses that were damaged or destroyed.

00;03;56;04 - 00;04;20;11
Alex Cary
And so we started we started building back and I was introduced to fortified just a few years later when when, you know, as things were progressing, there was a nonprofit that was founded right here in Mobile, Alabama, that was that had been looking for ways to sort of stop the cycle of destruction where we think it's destroying and people are rebuilding the same way.

00;04;20;11 - 00;04;25;25
Alex Cary
And and they were sort of like this this fed up with with the with that that norm and.

00;04;25;25 - 00;04;28;02
Hal Needham
Yeah the same old losses from every hurricane.

00;04;28;09 - 00;04;47;12
Alex Cary
That's right. So they found they found fortified and I asked and found it really felt like that was the way that they could make some changes. And that's when I was first introduced to Smart Home and fortified. And then we ended up doing a demonstration project while I was still at Habitat and used that to help educate the surrounding community.

00;04;48;11 - 00;05;10;00
Alex Cary
And that sort of morphed into my, my, my continued path and jumped on board with Smart Home as a board member first and staff member later. And just to back up a minute, when I was first with was introduced to fortify the habitat, I you know, I really had done a lot of green building. I was sort of always pushing the envelope for new technologies and things.

00;05;10;00 - 00;05;30;19
Alex Cary
And and when this resilience piece came along, before I came along, it was kind of just this absolute no brainer that, yeah, this obviously makes the absolute most sense and especially because we're building for the most vulnerable people when it comes to recovery, it just made even more sense because we want to make sure that their homes are their safe places, that they're able to come back to.

00;05;31;08 - 00;05;31;23
Hal Needham
Yeah, sure.

00;05;32;17 - 00;05;35;22
Alex Cary
And so it just just made all sorts of sense.

00;05;36;02 - 00;05;58;06
Hal Needham
Alex, you mentioned some of these initiatives starting after Hurricane Ivan in 2004 and Katrina in 2005. I've heard a lot of a lot of initiatives starting after those hyperactive years. Do you see sometimes there being more of a motivation for people to get out and start these initiatives after these really, really severe storm years compared to, say, a hurricane season like this year where it's a much more quiet season?

00;05;58;26 - 00;06;22;09
Alex Cary
Yeah, absolutely. I think immediately after storms is we do see a lot of interest because people don't want to I mean, it's kind of twofold. We have some some mindset where people just want to get back in their homes or let me just get this done as quickly as possible. However, there's when you have their sort of back to back kind of situations, people get really disaster weary and want to do something different and want to make sure that they don't have to relive those things.

00;06;22;27 - 00;06;43;28
Alex Cary
And likewise, with community leaders, you know, there's a lot of dollars, a lot of community dollars that go into recovery. And in some communities don't necessarily have you know, most these don't have unending coffers of money to do our time again. So I think there's from a leadership perspective, oftentimes we get communities that are looking for solutions that will prevent that kind of thing from happening.

00;06;43;29 - 00;06;52;02
Hal Needham
That makes sense. And it sounds like there may be an opportunity post storm to say, hey, funds are coming in. Let's not only recover from this, but maybe build better for the future.

00;06;52;19 - 00;07;08;27
Alex Cary
Absolutely. And I think the one thing that, you know, in a year like this, we also are very cognizant of something we call disaster amnesia, where people forget that, you know, these types of things do happen and we get a lot of influx from other parts of the country. People don't really understand or know that what their risk is.

00;07;08;27 - 00;07;13;20
Alex Cary
And so there's is there's always different dynamics. But yeah, certainly storms do wake people up.

00;07;13;26 - 00;07;20;00
Hal Needham
Yeah, for sure. Alex, could you share a little bit about your role with Ida and what kind of projects you're working on?

00;07;20;16 - 00;07;56;09
Alex Cary
Absolutely. So my, my, I'm the fortified market development manager for IHS, and with that I do a lot of sort of relationship building, a lot of education on fortified and what that means and what resilient construction is. So really I engage from anything from roofers and subcontractors on job sites all the way up to the, you know, the higher levels where we're engaging with policymakers and and insurance regulators to really just inform them on resilience and what fortified is and how it can work and help all of those groups, really.

00;07;56;24 - 00;08;00;26
Hal Needham
It sounds like there is quite a big component of that with relationship building.

00;08;01;19 - 00;08;22;01
Alex Cary
Quite a bit. Yeah, it's you know, especially on the contractor side, there's a lot of just education on the technical aspects. And then on the policy side, how and communities I mentioned community leaders in making those decisions or giving them the tools to be able to implement these things on a higher level as well.

00;08;22;13 - 00;08;41;04
Hal Needham
Sure. Alex, we hear so much about this work in Hurricane country, right? The Gulf Coast, even southeast Atlantic Coast, these places that are potentially going to see these really strong hurricane winds. What about other parts of the country, other parts of the world? What's the geographic scope of the work that IBEX is doing? Are they working with other hazards as well?

00;08;42;07 - 00;09;10;01
Alex Cary
Sure. So I will say first that that wind is wind. So while we do, we're talking a lot hurricane here because I'm I'm in Mobile on the coast and you cover a lot of coastal areas, but wind is wind and there's we also know historically that people really thought there was nothing you could do for tornadoes. But we know that there are very there very much ways that you can really reduce the amount of damage that even tornadic winds do.

00;09;10;12 - 00;09;34;13
Alex Cary
And in the lower level tornadoes and most tornadoes are lower level. So we know we can really reduce the amount of damage they do and even narrow the path of those really sizable storms that make headlines as we can. We can narrow the path of damage because not the entire path is that EF four and five. So I wanted to make sure we made that clear to folks inland areas that don't really aren't really aware of.

00;09;34;13 - 00;09;56;25
Hal Needham
Alex, I recently saw a presentation that said, okay, if you get an EF four or EF five tornado, there might be nothing you can do. But even in those really most severe tornadoes, you get a lot of geographic space on the periphery that are seeing they're not seeing EF five winds. They might be seeing if one winds or, you know, maybe an 80, 90, 100 mile an hour wind, not the 300 plus mile an hour winds.

00;09;56;25 - 00;10;02;01
Hal Needham
So it sounds like you're saying these lower level tornado winds, there are some things we can do to mitigate against that.

00;10;02;11 - 00;10;21;04
Alex Cary
That's exactly right. And we can we can even eliminate the EF zero have a significant impact on the one areas of that path and then even upwards into the when you get into the higher levels of fortified, you can even have a good reduction in that you have three. So there's there's definitely ways we can we can help that.

00;10;22;26 - 00;10;33;21
Hal Needham
Yeah, very interesting. And like you said, wind is wind, whether it's coming from a hurricane in Charleston, South Carolina, or in Oklahoma. Oklahoma tornado. Right. It's still wind hitting a building.

00;10;34;07 - 00;11;05;14
Alex Cary
That's right. And you mentioned other geographic areas. We also do quite a bit with, um, with Wildfire. We just recently launched our wildfire program. And so that's that's really a big deal, as you might imagine, out west as they sort of have this increased in number and severity of wildfires every year. So California's where that is starting, but we have the standard live and available to utilize whether or not you actually go for the designated designation at the end.

00;11;05;15 - 00;11;08;07
Alex Cary
But so we do a lot of research on that as well.

00;11;08;13 - 00;11;29;05
Hal Needham
It was really a heartbreaking but sobering to see with the Megadrought out in the southwest, even Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, a lot of these places saw incredible wildfire years this year, even in the central Texas, where not far from where I live. And it sounds like you're saying there may be ways that we can build better to help mitigate against these fire or wildfire losses as well.

00;11;29;18 - 00;11;42;04
Alex Cary
Yes, there are. And we we have some great guidance, too, to help homeowners with both their existing homes. And certainly when they're building about decisions they can make that can make a big difference on how their home performs.

00;11;42;09 - 00;12;00;23
Hal Needham
Yeah, you know, in something we believe here at Geo Track, we can't necessarily stop the wildfires. We can't necessarily stop the hurricanes or the tornadoes. But there are things we can do to get out ahead of it right? Build better, plan better, so that at least we're not blindsided. And it sounds like you all are doing that work to kind of saying, what can we do to get out ahead of these hazards and reduce the losses?

00;12;01;06 - 00;12;20;14
Alex Cary
Yes, that that is definitely, definitely our mission. We want to reduce, you know, reduce the amount of suffering we see after, you know, you've mentioned heartbreak. We we really want to reduce that as much as possible. And while our programs are not proving anything to make sure we are clear on that, we're not disaster proofing, but we are we are really trying to reduce that damage.

00;12;20;17 - 00;12;26;24
Alex Cary
And whenever possible, keep people in their homes or have a home to come back to after evacuation.

00;12;27;01 - 00;12;48;29
Hal Needham
You know, and I love that because sometimes in the climate space, it seems like so many of the stories are about I don't know if I want to say gloom and doom, but definitely more severe losses, more severe hazards. And so it can really feel a bit discouraging and overwhelming and maybe hopeless. It sounds like you're doing some work to say, okay, there are ways we can build better to put some hope back in these communities.

00;12;49;15 - 00;13;03;18
Alex Cary
That's right. We're not we're not helpless. And there are certainly, you know, the science is there. And we we know some really clear ways and some of them are quite affordable ways to make a difference on home performance. And reducing that that suffering.

00;13;04;03 - 00;13;24;04
Hal Needham
Yeah, I'm encouraged to hear that. And it's really nice to know that you have a large geographic footprint, that you're out there helping communities and all these different states. Alex It is mid-September, historically the heart of hurricane season. This one's been a bit weird. There have not been many storms in the storms that have been have not really made a big impact on at least the mainland of the US.

00;13;24;14 - 00;13;34;15
Hal Needham
But let's talk a little bit about hurricanes and some of these things that IBB is doing to really reduce the losses from hurricane winds in some of these coastal counties and parishes.

00;13;35;22 - 00;14;06;24
Alex Cary
Yes. So one of our one of our larger ways to do that, you know, we do a lot of research in that we have a research facility in South Carolina where we are able to to subject full scale structures to all kinds of hurricane winds and water, among other things. And through that, we've we've been able to develop our fortify program, which is really where the rubber meets the road with a lot of our research and with the Fortify program we have, you know, that's been applied in a lot of coastal communities, a growing number of coastal communities.

00;14;07;04 - 00;14;25;24
Alex Cary
And we've we've actually seen some real world results from that, where we've had them impacted by hurricanes and had some excellent results as at the performance of the homes which which did exactly as they were, as they were designed to do. And applying all those little things that make a very big difference in how they perform.

00;14;26;12 - 00;14;52;08
Hal Needham
You know, and let's talk about this. I've heard this saying recently that a test is worth more than a thousand expert opinions. Right. I think one of the really good tests we've seen for in the US and and fortified was when Hurricane Sally hit Alabama, really south Alabama and the extreme western Florida Panhandle in September of 2020. And the reason I say that rapidly intensified into a Cat two hurricane.

00;14;52;08 - 00;15;11;19
Hal Needham
It was moving really slow, but it hit a part of the country, really, Baldwin County down there where there are a lot of fortified homes per capita, at least compared to other houses. Could you share a little bit about the results from a Cat two hurricane hit? How did Baldwin County do? How did the fortified houses do really in that hurricane zone, taking a direct hit from Category two?

00;15;11;19 - 00;15;12;02
Hal Needham
Sally?

00;15;12;27 - 00;15;31;14
Alex Cary
Yeah. So I think for those of us that live in hurricane prone regions, I think when you say a Category two, sometimes there's a little bit of a sort of lackadaisical approach to even a Cat two just because we've been through it so many times. Both the challenge and one thing you mentioned that was really unique about values that you see was very slow moving.

00;15;31;14 - 00;15;52;21
Alex Cary
So it was it was, you know, the homes in the path were subjected for many, many hours. I live in Baldwin County and I think we were in the eyewall for six or 7 hours worth of 110, 120 mile per hour winds. So it was really intense for a long time. And that does provide additional stress than maybe a normal storm that would blow through.

00;15;53;15 - 00;16;25;28
Alex Cary
And we had about 17,000 homes in the path of Sally at the time. And we had less than 100 that had any kind of real noticeable damage. And and so so all of those homes fared incredibly well. Many, many fortified rooms didn't performed as they should. And like I mentioned earlier, no, we're not disaster proofing anything. So folks might have lost some shingles that might have loosened during the storm and burned off, but they did not get that water intrusion that most of the time you would see happen after after of cover losses.

00;16;26;11 - 00;16;41;25
Alex Cary
Normally, a lot of water comes in and through the roof because of that. And those homes fared incredibly well. And we have a lot of roofers and contractors and homeowners just really, really feeling positive about the program and their decision to go with a fortified roof or at home.

00;16;42;09 - 00;16;48;15
Hal Needham
Yeah. All of a sudden when the hurricane comes knocking on your door and you do not have the damage that your neighbors have, that really makes a huge difference. Right?

00;16;48;28 - 00;17;08;14
Alex Cary
It makes a very big difference. And we had a we actually saw a huge uptick in fortified roofs after that because because of that, very fast, we had a lot of neighborhoods where, you know, either existing neighborhoods where there have been of, you know, maybe a handful of homeowners that had retrofitted their roofs to fortified and their, you know, the rest of their neighbors didn't fare so well.

00;17;08;14 - 00;17;22;26
Alex Cary
And so they and all of a sudden they're like, well, who did your roof? What's your roof? You know, what's up here? And so then that word spread pretty quickly. So we really as well as with our, you know, some of the local leadership, we have a lot of a lot of social media stuff going around from code officials and others.

00;17;22;26 - 00;17;28;03
Alex Cary
Spread the word. You know, if you're building back and you lost your roof, put it on fortified so made a big difference.

00;17;28;03 - 00;17;37;26
Hal Needham
And Alex so how did fortified get such a strong footprint there in south Alabama like why south Alabama compared to other places that you don't really see fortified as much?

00;17;38;27 - 00;18;03;10
Alex Cary
So a lot of it has to do with local leadership making some really big decisions. Like I mentioned after Ivan in Katrina, they're trying to to set up of Alabama for for some some better success in the future with with disasters. And so there were some legislative things that were done in the way of incentives. We you know, we had a grant trust that was set up for funding grants in the future.

00;18;03;10 - 00;18;21;29
Alex Cary
Way back then, wasn't funded at the time that they set it up to get it ready. And now we have it funded. And there's a lot of great activity happening here with homeowners getting rooms. We also had some legislative incentives for for insurance where where folks get discounts for that here. And we have things like tax credits as well.

00;18;21;29 - 00;18;44;08
Alex Cary
So there was a lot of things done at the top level that really made a difference there. And then we had there were some code officials with with builder support that actually got the codes to incorporate some of those fortified elements. And so it was sort of top, top and bottom level where these changes were occurring and then builders and homeowner lots of education.

00;18;44;08 - 00;18;45;19
Alex Cary
That was a lot of education.

00;18;45;20 - 00;19;04;20
Hal Needham
Alex When when you talk about grants, I think I had heard through the grapevine not officially. And I'm curious if you can confirm this. I think I heard at one point there was a $10,000 grant where a homeowner could say, I need a new roof, I want to get fortified. It's more expensive. But this $10,000 grant, perhaps through the state, would help offset some of those costs.

00;19;04;20 - 00;19;06;19
Hal Needham
Is that accurate? Am I saying that correctly?

00;19;06;28 - 00;19;32;26
Alex Cary
It is. And it is Alabama specific. But here in Alabama, there is a $10,000 grant from the homeowners can apply for there needs to be owner occupied and people can apply and get that $10,000 grant towards regrouping to fortify as long as they're home. There's some minor prerequisites that has been extremely successful. And now we have, I think, close to 3500 homes in coastal Alabama that have been retrofitted with fortified roofs.

00;19;33;07 - 00;19;49;24
Hal Needham
Wow. That's a that's amazing. And like we said, too, seeing a hurricane impact and seeing the reduction in losses, all of a sudden people start saying, well, wait, now, if someone did not have a fortified roof going in this alley and they had damage, they might look to their left and look to the right and say, well, why did my neighbors do better than I did?

00;19;49;24 - 00;19;57;14
Hal Needham
I want a fortified roof, too. So once you get that critical mass right, you get enough thousands of people that have them all of a sudden, I think more people want them.

00;19;57;27 - 00;20;02;21
Alex Cary
Yes, we did see quite a bit of that for sure at Alex.

00;20;02;21 - 00;20;28;07
Hal Needham
So, you know, obviously, it's great if we can see the real world and improved performance out, you know, from a storm in real life. But often we are hurricanes are rare events, tornadoes are rare events. We don't often see them. And so I guess there was out there innovating every day. And so to do that, you all set up this kind of like a wind laboratory, right, where you could test houses side by side.

00;20;28;07 - 00;20;35;10
Hal Needham
Could you share a little bit about your your wind facility where you actually have these turbines and you create your own, quote unquote hurricane winds?

00;20;36;00 - 00;21;01;21
Alex Cary
Yeah, it's a really it's really a one of a kind world class facility where we you know, we have 105 bands that are six foot tall that can create winds up to 130 miles per hour. And then we actually all of that wind is directed into what is essentially an airplane sized airplane hangar sized space where we can bring in full sized structures and subject them to the wind.

00;21;02;13 - 00;21;28;04
Alex Cary
We can create up to eight inches of rain an hour in that same space to put that into the wind and see how the wind and water interact with the structures. And then we even are able to, you know, again, switching from hurricane back to wildfire, we can we've done a lot of research on the Ember, you know, ember and wildfire space where you can put embers into that into that Windstream and then see how the embers interact with with the built environment and various various components.

00;21;28;04 - 00;21;45;02
Alex Cary
So it's a it's a really incredible place and very, very unique. And it's it's we've been able to learn a lot from that, from that real research on on full scale structures versus a lot of some of the more component based things that happen in other research.

00;21;45;08 - 00;21;56;16
Hal Needham
It's almost like simulating an extreme weather lab, basically, and testing, okay, what happens if we use this kind of shingle instead of that kind of shingle or, you know, changing whatever building components on the house, Right?

00;21;57;04 - 00;22;10;12
Alex Cary
Absolutely. And we're able to really test the system of a building. And instead of just the components, we can we can really apply that as a systems approach. And it makes the research that much more valuable for sure.

00;22;10;12 - 00;22;27;14
Hal Needham
This is a bit of an off the wall impromptu question. For 14 years I've been like going into hurricanes when I can and I have I've developed storm chasing friends along the way, right? That and for me, it's not about the adrenaline, it's not about a rush or anything like that. I really want to always anytime I'm in a storm, I'm learning something new about the meteorology.

00;22;27;22 - 00;22;48;09
Hal Needham
But in recent years I'm learning more about the impacts. And so I found like some my favorite place to go is a parking garage right next to houses where I can be up above the floodwater. The wind just coming through the parking structure, but I can actually video a real house in real time from a hurricane. What if storm chasers are out there and they wanted to document impacts?

00;22;48;16 - 00;23;05;06
Hal Needham
Is there anything like that you could recommend they focus on? Like should they zoom in on shingle performance on just the the whole roof as a as a whole or like the corners of the roof. More interesting than the main part of the roof. I mean, is there anything you could share that would be of use? Like if people do have footage from a real storm?

00;23;06;07 - 00;23;39;26
Alex Cary
That's a really interesting and great question. So roofs tend to be the absolute first thing to go. And we do a lot of focusing on ribs. One of the more the biggest purchaser of shingles in the United States is actually insurance companies because they are constantly replacing roofs. And then it's interesting also that you mentioned Edge because a lot of the wind pressures, that is exactly where they are as the highest is the edges of roofs where the wind pressure can affect and sometimes just take out an entire roof structure off because they especially in older structures.

00;23;40;12 - 00;24;00;05
Alex Cary
And you always I mean, it seems like we always see that in storm footage is some roofs blowing off down the street. Right. And inspires wind events. But but yeah, we do a lot of focusing on that specifically. And that can happen even in the lower level events, like even a category one or two. We see we see a lot so much roof damage.

00;24;00;05 - 00;24;10;29
Hal Needham
So do you see cases too, where people have a lot of low, low lying, low hanging branches that are just like maybe scraping against the roof during the storm or things like that? Is that is that something that can be a problem as well?

00;24;11;24 - 00;24;41;05
Alex Cary
Absolutely. We saw a lot we actually, sadly, because of the intensity of the wind and rain that that occurred for such a long period of time were that was a very it had as much tree damage, if not more, than Ivan, which was actually a cat three that So trees are something certainly to pay attention to. And it doesn't mean we don't have a lot of tree guidance, but we definitely suggest to homeowners that, you know, they keep it's not a requirement of the program.

00;24;41;05 - 00;25;05;23
Alex Cary
But we were pay attention to whether you have low winds hanging over your house and and even to the health of the tree. And we've we've worked with some partners specifically here in Alabama. I know on the ground, just just for example, Auburn University is a great a great resource as far as, you know, looking at trees and being able to help you determine whether or not they're they should be trimmed or taken out completely.

00;25;05;23 - 00;25;27;07
Hal Needham
Yeah, And Alex, that's a good point. I mean, you can improve your shingle performance or other structural components, but if you have an 80 foot pine tree come through your house, there's there's really nothing you can do, Right? So probably good for homeowners to take a look around, especially at hanging limbs or dead trees or anything like that, that there's no way you could build against that if you're going to have a massive pine tree coming through your roof.

00;25;27;20 - 00;25;47;07
Alex Cary
Yeah, that's right. And some of the sort of preliminary claims data we got out of some of our members actually referenced that specifically is that they they had the claims that were on fortified homes. A lot of them were actually tree related because a tree came through the roof or somehow damaged the home. So, yeah, trees are pretty important.

00;25;47;26 - 00;26;07;24
Hal Needham
Yeah. Thanks, Alex. I wanted to pivot and talk a little bit about hail as well. We did a two part podcast with Eleanor Kinsman, the former insurance commissioner of Texas in South Carolina, and she made a statement. She said, you know, hail is often this underestimated or underrated hazard because, you know, if there's a hurricane, it's all over the front page of the news.

00;26;08;03 - 00;26;27;22
Hal Needham
These hail events, they tend to be pockets of the especially Texas, Oklahoma, some of these southern plains areas. If there's a hailstorm that impacts 1200 houses that might be in a local news somewhere, it's certainly not going to hit national news. And cumulatively these events will happen most of the days, sometimes in the spring. Right somewhere is getting big hail.

00;26;28;01 - 00;26;32;08
Hal Needham
Could you share a little bit about what I guess is doing for minimizing hail damage?

00;26;33;01 - 00;26;52;20
Alex Cary
Yes, we do. A lot of that is part of a big part of the roof. And a lot of damage occurs every year, as you mentioned, because of hail. And I think because it's more of maybe a new nuisance hazard versus a life safety hazard, it does get a little a lot less attention unless it's a really sizable hailstone.

00;26;52;20 - 00;27;15;00
Alex Cary
We just don't you're right. We don't see that as much in the news. So we do have we we've done a lot of research specifically on shingles as it pertains to hail, because the shingles have there are impact shingles that a lot of folks pay premiums for. And in our early research, we discovered that not all impact shingles were performing as they were intended.

00;27;15;00 - 00;27;40;14
Alex Cary
And so we actually have changed the game in a lot of ways when it comes to impact roofing shingle, specifically, I should say, where we've developed our own, you know, the original test for Hail for Impact shingles was a steel ball. Thankfully, that's not what falls from the sky do and they make very different damage than steel balls and so we came up with our own proprietary formula for developing hailstones.

00;27;40;14 - 00;28;05;10
Alex Cary
And originally we were doing a lot of that by hand in the early days and have since patented our own hail, hail producing machine. And and that is now how we produce hail to to test shingles and within that testing, we, we now have a hail rating for shingles. We pulled we pull shingles right off the shelf versus getting them off the factory floor, which makes also makes a big difference.

00;28;05;16 - 00;28;17;12
Hal Needham
That's amazing. Alex So when you talk about impact rating for shingles, is there a just like one type of enhanced shingle or are there a bunch of different kinds? I mean, could you explain a little bit about the details with that?

00;28;17;25 - 00;28;39;00
Alex Cary
So many shingles manufacturers make a impact rated shingle, which which is the testing is a class four rating that they are that they usually will have. And that's what you would look for if you were looking for an impact shingle in a hail, hail prone region. And with that, that's what I was referring to, that just they don't all perform well.

00;28;39;00 - 00;28;58;26
Alex Cary
And so with our testing that we've done pulling those products and testing them in our lab, we worked with the manufacturers and they were at the table when it happened and we came out with a rating and some of them failed. Some of the Class four that passed the original test, the UL test to get that class rating failed, failed our tests.

00;28;58;26 - 00;29;13;18
Alex Cary
And so a lot of those manufacturers or not a lot of them, I should say, but there were manufacturers that went back to the drawing board when their shingles failed and pulled their product off the shelf and came back with a better product. So we're really changing the market when it comes to to impact shingles.

00;29;13;24 - 00;29;23;27
Hal Needham
Yeah, that's fantastic. And I like it seems like you're really going into the details to try to make this as accurate as you can really kind of test this out. So we know what we can put out there in the real world.

00;29;24;11 - 00;29;50;02
Alex Cary
Yes. And we do have that that list now that has good and better ratings on shingles, which is actually what we require for our 4 to 5 hour fortified hail supplement that you can apply to your house. We have that list of product that did pass the test. So we're just trying to educate consumers. So if they're going to spend that premium dollar to get an impact shingles that they're purchasing, one that that should perform as intended.

00;29;50;16 - 00;30;05;20
Hal Needham
I like this hailstone machine that launches these hailstones. I'm having flashbacks to my high school tennis team when my friends used to turn the ball machine and shoot the balls at me at 800 miles an hour, I might have to schedule a therapy session after this to kind of work through that. But it's not about me suing itself.

00;30;05;20 - 00;30;10;28
Alex Cary
It just makes the hailstones. But our researchers have what is essentially a lot like that.

00;30;10;28 - 00;30;11;26
Hal Needham
They have a launcher.

00;30;12;04 - 00;30;13;20
Alex Cary
Cannon that they shoot with.

00;30;13;27 - 00;30;21;09
Hal Needham
And so they can launch it at the roof. Right. Is this in the in the test facility, the same one where you have the wind turbines or another space?

00;30;21;23 - 00;30;40;04
Alex Cary
Yeah, we actually we have a lot of sort of side labs or a lot of that hill research takes place, so they have a booth where they have a hail cannon set up where they can be really specific and get into the, you know, they get pretty they're able to really dial in on the details of how they perform that test and what they're recording.

00;30;40;04 - 00;30;42;26
Alex Cary
And so that's where they take the hailstones and shoot them.

00;30;43;01 - 00;30;50;19
Hal Needham
Yeah, and I've heard hailstones are different sizes, even different shapes. Some are more smooth, some are more pushing the edges. I mean, I'm sure all of that has a different impact on your shingle.

00;30;51;09 - 00;31;09;13
Alex Cary
Yeah, it absolutely does. And we do. I should mention, too, that we do have a a team that goes out in the field. And in speaking of storm chasing, they actually do some of this very safely. They go and put some instruments out in the path of these storms and they're able to really get data on impact from shape from hail.

00;31;09;13 - 00;31;20;14
Alex Cary
And and we've got a 3D printer where they can scan and then reprint a lot of these hailstones to really get into the details of how how they form and what they look for super effect.

00;31;20;19 - 00;31;37;07
Hal Needham
And again that field where component you know we can do things in a lab in yellow are really advancing this lab work. But then there is something interesting about getting out there in the in the field. And sometimes what we see in the real world is a little bit different than the, you know, this last season I did my first really severe weather chasing and the hail was always a big concern.

00;31;37;15 - 00;31;55;26
Hal Needham
I'd often end up at gas stations. I'd I'd put my car underneath by the gas pump, so it's underneath the awning. And then I'd like go into the gas station because I didn't want my car all of damaged up by hailstones. I think next year I'm just going to get a better car. If anyone has a $500 car that like, goes from A to B, But that's about it.

00;31;55;26 - 00;32;04;29
Hal Needham
That's what I'm looking for next year. And I want to I want to maybe join your team out there in the field, because that's really interesting that you all are out there, like really documenting what's happening in these real events.

00;32;05;18 - 00;32;18;29
Alex Cary
Yeah, it's it's pretty it's pretty exciting stuff. And I know, you know, we do a lot of social media posts around that. So I would encourage anybody out there that wants to kind of maybe a web, any of you weather nerds out there, it's it's pretty cool stuff that they're doing out there.

00;32;19;05 - 00;32;39;07
Hal Needham
Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing that. You know, you talked a little bit about the work you're doing to reduce hurricane impacts than just the wind in general. In much of the plains. We talked about the wildfire mitigation and now hail as well. So, you know, clearly you all are really addressing these most severe type of extreme weather impacts and trying to mitigate houses.

00;32;39;07 - 00;32;54;26
Hal Needham
For that, I wanted to ask you a last question here. What are the main obstacles you see to people taking steps to better prepare and mitigate their home or their business against damage from storm? What are some of those obstacles and how can we overcome them?

00;32;56;12 - 00;33;18;19
Alex Cary
I, I think one of the obstacles is people just being aware of their risk in the first place and really understanding the hazards that in the communities that they live in. And I think it's becoming people are more aware of that as these disasters continue to increase in frequency and severity where that's becoming I hate to say it, but it's becoming less of a problem.

00;33;18;19 - 00;33;41;28
Alex Cary
But because they're so they're so frequent, but that can be one, especially as people are sort of become, you know, moving to different parts of the country these days. And so really understanding your risk first. Second, I think that a lot of in a lot of cases, they take safety for granted. They take for granted that maybe don't aren't aware of the code or whether the home is built to code or if it is what the code was once did.

00;33;42;09 - 00;34;05;08
Alex Cary
And in code doesn't mean your house is resilient. I think that, you know, code varies considerably. It's not a uniform adoption in some states don't even have one in Texas doesn't have a code. Sure. Near Alabama, for that matter. So that's a big one. And just because it's built to code codes, the legally, the worst way you can build when it comes down to it.

00;34;05;08 - 00;34;17;22
Alex Cary
So there are ways that you can affect your home and do things to to both retrofit or build new that are slightly above code. Not very fast, not very cost prohibitive, but that can make a big difference on your home.

00;34;18;11 - 00;34;39;05
Hal Needham
I like what you're talking about, knowing what you're up against, preparing for that and not just doing the minimum of code. Right? We get to take the Gulf Coast like you live in one of the fastest growing counties in America, Baldwin County, Alabama. Incredible growth. A lot of people moving down from Chicago, Detroit, these other places that say, hey, I'm done shoveling snow, I'm retiring.

00;34;39;05 - 00;34;54;26
Hal Needham
I want to go to the warm Gulf Coast. They've never been through a hurricane before. They've maybe only visited or vacation before. And so when they come, they don't really know what they're up against. I feel like some of these people fall back on a local code saying like, well, that must be the limit to keep me safe.

00;34;55;02 - 00;35;04;04
Hal Needham
But it sounds like you're saying the code isn't always your safety limit. It might just be a minimum requirement, but we can build above that sometimes, too, to really help a lot more.

00;35;04;04 - 00;35;21;09
Alex Cary
And I think that's one of the most important pieces of advice. And I should mention that there are places that are doing a great job with code, and I will say that coastal Alabama really is one of the better ones. And there are areas of Florida in a lot of coastal areas have done better. And we know that code built homes can perform.

00;35;21;09 - 00;35;36;05
Alex Cary
It's more modern building codes. They can quite well, but that's not for fun really levels. The playing field can be applied anywhere and if it is in many cases just slightly above code. But like I said, it can make a big difference with how your home hit.

00;35;36;07 - 00;35;53;12
Hal Needham
We're talking about all these fortified homes in south Alabama. Has it gotten to the point in any communities where there are so many fortified homes that say, like realtors get in on this and say, hey, there are enough there's enough of a fortified footprint that people are asking for fortified homes, that people are aware of it, and they want to buy a fortified home.

00;35;53;18 - 00;35;55;28
Hal Needham
Do we see that happening Like in south Alabama?

00;35;56;17 - 00;36;15;25
Alex Cary
It is happening every day in south Alabama. And it is it's probably getting harder to to sell a non fortified home at this point just because there's so much awareness and people are asking for it. And we've had builders that ended up getting on board because they had so many people coming in to their sales offices and asking for affordable, you know, do you build fortified.

00;36;15;25 - 00;36;24;05
Alex Cary
And so it's really I think the market is absolutely tipped here where that is really more of an expectation at this point. And, you know.

00;36;24;22 - 00;36;41;04
Hal Needham
It's almost becoming the standard of what people just expect. Comparative a place, you know, like where I'm at in Texas, it would be really rare at this point still to find a fortified roof, although everywhere I go, I'm talking about it and people are interested. People know their risk. They know they're in a risky place out here where I live.

00;36;41;04 - 00;36;44;21
Hal Needham
But we're just not seeing the results quite yet that you're having over there in Alabama.

00;36;45;04 - 00;36;53;07
Alex Cary
Yeah, well, we've got like I said, education is the key thing. So we're glad to have you out there doing that, because if people don't know about it, obviously we can apply. So.

00;36;53;20 - 00;37;07;09
Hal Needham
Alex, any last thoughts? You know, if you were at a barbecue and someone said, so what's what's your big picture on resiliency and building better and you had a you had a minute to give them an answer, what would you say? I mean, what are your your last big thoughts on this topic?

00;37;07;22 - 00;37;29;04
Alex Cary
Well, it's not a big part, but my first question would be, if you're not if you're regrouping any time soon, please call me. That's usually inevitably somebody you either just regrouped or they're about to regroup and they're glad to know about four or five, really for for existing homeowners in particular, looking for opportunities and ways to just educate yourself on on fortified and on resilience.

00;37;29;04 - 00;37;52;25
Alex Cary
And if you if you're looking to reroof anytime soon, please, please go to fortified home dot org because that is a great resource and can help you. The other thing I would say too is that there are a lot of contractors out there. If you're not in the housing market, there's a lot of contractors out there that do not know about fortified and we've even had them dissuade people from from applying the standard because they just didn't understand it and didn't want to bother with anything new.

00;37;52;25 - 00;37;58;09
Alex Cary
So, you know, push that because it is helpful and you will see results from it.

00;37;58;14 - 00;38;22;23
Hal Needham
Alex Now since we touched on other states, so I actually have a good friend of mine is a roofer out here in Texas. I would, I would guess, I mean, I need to talk it through with him, but I'd guess he's probably never really gone through intentionally and done the fortified standard. Is there are there ways that roofers or contractors and other states could contact you all and get training and be like, okay, I want to be fortified, certified or something like that?

00;38;23;02 - 00;38;27;04
Hal Needham
Can that can people in other states do that and get that training that they can take back home?

00;38;28;01 - 00;38;50;13
Alex Cary
Yes, yes, yes, Yes, we have. That's one of the one of the the silver linings of COVID is that we got all of our trainings online. Didn't used to be. So you can fortified wise icon. We have all of our trainings. We have roofer training. We have training for contractors, which is the full training. And then we also have we have a need for evaluators, which is actually the inspection part.

00;38;50;13 - 00;39;03;18
Alex Cary
We have a third party verification. It's really important. So anybody out there that might be interested in has a construction background or a building science background. We need more of those guys out there too, that are able to help and do the inspections throughout the process so well.

00;39;03;19 - 00;39;19;09
Hal Needham
And I could see there being a market place in a in a state like Texas where you don't see as many fortified roofs. But if for those contractors and those roofers that get out ahead of the curve, all of a sudden they could offer a service that their competitors to their left and right are not offering that. So it sets them apart.

00;39;19;09 - 00;39;27;04
Hal Needham
Right. They're not just another roofer. All of a sudden they're a roofer. Plus, you know, they can do some things that their their competition maybe can't.

00;39;27;04 - 00;39;52;27
Alex Cary
It does. And we have seen that in new markets that, you know, there really needs to be a leader that kind of takes that and does exactly as you said, and set themselves apart and offers a superior product. And again, it doesn't necessarily have to cost a huge amount. And those folks really do well and are able to better protect their customers and ultimately the customers come back to them again and again because or refer their friends because, you know, they got that better route.

00;39;52;27 - 00;39;56;17
Alex Cary
The next storm comes along, their roof performs better, and all of a sudden everybody wants.

00;39;56;17 - 00;40;12;26
Hal Needham
Well that that I would I would imagine in a place like south Alabama where you had a lot of fortified roofs, you had a Category two hurricane impact, all of a sudden, the referrals are probably just taking off. Right, Because you're telling their grandma and their aunt like, hey, get a fortified roof. That's what I had. And I, I had no storm damage.

00;40;13;09 - 00;40;24;24
Alex Cary
We had one contractor that three days after had 800 voice messages because everybody was pointing their friends to him and he couldn't keep up with the demand from them.

00;40;24;24 - 00;40;46;19
Hal Needham
Yeah, that's, that's the best advertisement ever. The best publicity ever. Right. Saying like, look, what we did works. We just had a hurricane and my houses did really well. Everyone wants I mean, that's a great success story. Alex, really appreciate you coming on the podcast. I really admire the work that y'all are doing there with us and hopefully I really want to see this wind facility and I want to meet up with your Halo team out there next spring as well.

00;40;47;05 - 00;40;53;26
Alex Cary
Yeah, I would love to connect you and thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it and look forward to talk to you again sometime.

00;40;54;03 - 00;41;16;21
Hal Needham
Thanks, Alex. Appreciate it. Alex, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Your insights were amazing and it's always encouraging to hear about the latest innovations at IBS. You had so many perspective said Our listeners can apply right away. Something that stood out to me is how you said that fortified builders had hundreds of costs of work to do in south Alabama after Hurricane Sally in 2020.

00;41;17;04 - 00;41;38;18
Hal Needham
They say a test is more valuable than a thousand expert opinions, and the storms from recent years have revealed the benefit of building better. There's no better advantage segment for builders than their homes performing well when tested while neighboring homes are damaged. Alex, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. We wish you a safe hurricane season and look forward to tracking your professional progress in the future.

00;41;38;26 - 00;41;58;18
Hal Needham
We'll continue the discussion about this topic on our social media page. Go to Facebook group, go track the community, come join us for a chat about building better to mitigate storm damage on behalf of the Go Track production and marketing team. This is Dr. Howell signing off until the next episode of the GEO Track podcast.

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