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After a disaster, homeowners’ rebuilding decisions can reshape the built environment to mitigate hazards and global climate effects. In this study, we explore homeowners’ rebuilding priorities of fire resilience and sustainability, and what influences these priorities. We base this exploration on surveys conducted with over 300 homeowners rebuilding after the 2021 Marshall Fire near Boulder, Colorado. To determine what supports and inhibits the adoption of household sustainability and fire resilience measures for homes, we statistically analyzed survey data on homeowner rebuilding priorities and factors influencing the rebuilding priorities of sustainability and fire resilience. We found that homeowners prioritized cost the most, followed by aesthetics and sustainability, with fire resilience also highly prioritized; those that prioritized sustainability also prioritized fire resilience. However, financial factors did not significantly predict the prioritization of sustainability and fire resilience. We also found that beliefs about climate change and political ideology predicted the prioritization of sustainability, and support for fire resilience policy predicted the prioritization of fire resilience. These results suggest that homeowners consider the priorities of fire resilience and sustainability as related and indicate synergies that could be exploited if the most highly prioritized rebuilding priorities are combined. 

This study investigates the resilience of informally-constructed light-frame timber houses in Puerto Rico, a region where households with limited resources face significant risks from climate hazards, notably hurricanes. This study conducts a component-based, performance-based wind engineering assessment of informally-constructed house typologies, defined based on extensive fieldwork, under both existing and projected future climate conditions. Key findings highlight the effectiveness of certain mitigation strategies, such as reinforcing roof-to-wall connections, in significantly reducing the probability of failure. Fully-mitigated cases, which involve applying mitigation measures to the roof envelope, roof-to-wall connections, and shear walls, exhibited annual probabilities of failure that are much closer to, but do not necessarily meet, the threshold targeted by American building standards (i.e., ASCE 7). The results also show a dramatic increase in probability of failure of these houses projected by the adopted climate change model scenarios, driven by the increased frequency and intensity of hurricanes in Puerto Rico. Results from feedback from those working in the informal construction sector also identify challenges hindering the effective implementation of mitigation measures in Puerto Rican communities, including a lack of knowledge about how to implement the mitigation strategies and barriers related to real and perceived costs. Taken together these results underscore the urgent need for changes in building practices and revising building standards and suggesting potentially feasible mitigation strategies to improve those practices. 

Globally, hazards are increasingly threatening housing each year, and housing constructed outside the formal sector may be particularly vulnerable. Yet, limited studies have investigated the perceptions of those responsible for designing and building this housing. These safety perceptions motivate the informal housing construction practices that ultimately determine housing safety. Thus, this study investigates the multi-hazard housing safety perceptions of individuals involved with housing construction in Puerto Rico. We surveyed 345 builders and hardware store employees across Puerto Rico to understand their perceptions of expected housing damage in hurricanes and earthquakes, important mitigation measures, and barriers to safer housing construction. Our results reveal that prior hazard experience did not influence perceptions of expected housing damage, but previous housing construction experience did. Respondents viewed wood and concrete housing as less safe in hurricanes and earthquakes, respectively. Yet, respondents appeared uncertain about the importance of mitigation measures for concrete houses in earthquakes, likely due to a combination of limited earthquake experience and “hidden” reinforcement detailing in a reinforced concrete house. Interestingly, our results also show that respondents perceive technical construction capacity as a major barrier to safer informal housing construction rather than resource constraints alone. These findings suggest areas for technical construction capacity development for Puerto Rico’s informal construction sector. 

How residents perceive housing safety affects how structures are designed, built, and maintained. This study assesses the perceptions of housing safety through a survey of over 450 individuals in communities that received post-disaster housing reconstruction assistance following 2013’s Typhoon Yolanda, and that were potentially vulnerable to earthquakes. We analyzed how housing design factors, post-disaster program elements, personal characteristics, and hazard type and exposure influenced safety perceptions. Overall, individuals were most concerned with the safety of their roofs during hazard events and perceived their houses would be less safe in a future typhoon than a future earthquake. Housing material significantly impacted safety perceptions, with individuals in wood houses perceiving their houses to be the least safe. Individuals living in areas more exposed to hazards also perceived their houses to be less safe. Being relocated after the typhoon, witnessing good or bad practices during reconstruction, and prior disaster experience also significantly influenced perceptions of housing safety. These results are used to make recommendations on how implementing organizations can most beneficially intervene with program factors to improve local understanding of housing safety.