Rick Young Insurance's Blog

People who live and work in Michigan are accustomed to extreme weather: the National Weather Service names Michigan among the states that are most at risk of severe thunderstorms, ice storms, blizzards, river floods, heat waves and lake effect weather.  Down in South Carolina, scientists and engineers are busy simulating wind and hail so that they can learn ways of constructing commercial buildings that can withstand storms. Their research may eventually lead to lower costs for business insurance in Michigan, and businesses also benefit from other products of this research, such as national hail frequency maps.

You may wonder why anyone would want to create weather extremes when there’s so much extreme weather all around us, but the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety Research Center in South Carolina has a huge lab where extreme weather conditions of wind, hail and fire storms are recreated so that scientists can study how they affect buildings and building materials. Natural phenomena like rain and can be simulated, and winds of up to 140mph can be generated by an array of fans.

It’s not only hair-raising lab experiments that are carried out at the Center; scientists also analyze historic data. During 2012 research will focus on hail storms and their impact on roofs. This work is aimed at reducing the cost of home and business insurance in Michigan so business owners and home owners alike may be interested to hear the outcome of these projects.

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