On October 1, 2025, the Southern Climate Impacts Planning Program (SCIPP) hosted the Hazard Resilient Buildings Workshop with 31 representatives and speakers from the home building, insurance, and real estate communities in central Oklahoma. These sectors play a pivotal role in shaping the built environment and managing risk, making them key partners in advancing community resilience. The goal of this workshop was to raise awareness of the weather and climate hazards that most impact these communities, and to showcase best practices for strengthening homes and buildings. It also aimed to identify what resources are needed to make informed decisions that lead to increased resilience. A variety of sectors were represented at the workshop. Listed below are the speakers, their affiliation, and their presentation.
- Trey Bell of SCIPP – “Oklahoma Weather Hazards and Their Impacts”
- Rachael Gauthier of the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety – “IBHS Research, Experiments, and Examples of Severe Weather Mitigation Techniques”
- Jim LaDue of the American Society of Civil Engineers & American Meteorological Society – “In Field Observations of Hazard Mitigation Techniques & Damage Survey Examples”
- Dr. Somik Ghosh of OU College of Architecture – “Construction Practices Recommended by FORTIFIED”
- Ashly Scott of the Oklahoma Insurance Department – “Mitigation from OID’s perspective: Strengthen Oklahoma Homes Program”
- Brooke Troxmondo of Smart Home America – “Putting a Bow on it: Smart Home America’s Role in Building Resilience & Hazard Mitigation”
- Scott McCollum of McRoof & Oklahoma Roofing Association – “Building Resilience: A Roofing Practitioner’s perspective on what Works and What Doesn’t”
- Jessica Thompson of Oklahoma City Metropolitan Association of Realtors – “Mitigation from a Real Estate Perspective: Communication and Advocacy”
Many of the speakers highlighted IBHS FORTIFIED, a series of enhanced building standards that takes resiliency a step farther than typically mandated building codes, and agreed on its importance and proven potential to dramatically increase home and business resilience to wind, hail, and even wildfire – all of which are hazards seen in central Oklahoma. They also addressed a need for communication of the program’s benefits between professionals and consumers along with strategies to increase awareness and implementation. Following the presentations, attendees further discussed their experiences and brainstormed strategies for addressing the above-mentioned needs in both small and full group settings.
SCIPP’s mission centers around building and encouraging resilience across the south-central United States. With the rising frequency and cost of weather and climate hazards in central Oklahoma, proactive planning and resilient construction are more critical than ever. By equipping industry professionals with the tools and knowledge to encourage the building of hazard resistant structures and providing a space that fostered important connections between attendees, the workshop ultimately benefited homeowners and communities across the region. The collaboration of different sectors fostered solutions to both field-specific and more systemic problems regarding home construction, leaving most of the attendees interested in another discussion-based meeting or larger event in the future.
