When Hurricane Katrina made landfall in southern Louisiana 20 years ago, the region was ill-prepared for the 125 mph winds and catastrophic flooding that would follow.
Louisiana, like the rest of the United States, was still adopting modern international building codes, which had just gone into effect a few years prior.
“The good wind protections that we now all sort of take for granted in building codes didn’t come into place until 2002,” said Michael Newman, general counsel for the International Institute for Building & Home Safety (IBHS). “It’s maybe not so surprising that Louisiana