Ruilong Li

In September 1961, a plane investigating Typhoon Nancy reported one-minute sustained winds of 343 km/h.

Typhoon Ida made landfall in Japan 60 years ago, bringing record levels of precipitation to Tokyo and nearby provinces, causing devastating mudslides and flooding.

While the name may conjure up images of moats and drawbridges, a FORTIFIED Home™ is actually a new or existing house strengthened against specific natural hazards. FORTIFIED Home is a national program designed by the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) to improve the resilience of buildings and reduce insurance losses.

You can learn a lot when you break things. For the construction and insurance industries, testing buildings to destruction in a controlled and repeatable environment can be particularly revealing, and there are several facilities around the world in which this can be done.