Claim OwnershipDisaster Discussions Podcast
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Disasters like hurricanes, hailstorms, tornadoes, and wildfires can be devastating and frightening. They displace families, drive financial loss, and destroy communities. Join us as we sit down with science, insurance, and building industry professionals who will help us explore the intersection of these hazards with the built environment and steps being taken to prevent future devastation.
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As we wrap up another year of Disaster Discussions, we’re taking a moment to look back at the conversations that shaped 2025. From wildfire resilience and severe weather preparedness to the latest research on building standards, this season brought together experts and stories that matter for safer communities. Join us as we revisit key insights, highlight memorable moments, and celebrate the guests who helped make this year impactful. This episode features interviews from experts at IBHS, UC Berkeley, James Cook University Cyclone Testing Station, KB Home, ICECHIP, Geotrek, Alabama Department of Insurance, University of Alabama Center for Risk and Insurance Research, and McRoof Roofing and Insurance Experts.
In this episode of Disaster Discussions, we journey to the heart of tornado alley—to Oklahoma, where tornadoes and hailstorms are a way of life and homeowners face some of the highest insurance rates in the nation. This episode explores how the FORTIFIED Roof program and the Strengthen Oklahoma Homes initiative are transforming resilience, offering grants and insurance discounts to help families weather the storm. With insights from Fortified contractor and Master Haag Certified Inspector Scott McCollum Sr., we’ll unpack the mindsets of consumers, contractors, adjusters, and insurers, and examine the real-world impact of incentives, awareness, and lived experience on the adoption of stronger, safer roofs. Discover what’s working, what’s not, and what the future holds for building a more resilient Oklahoma—one roof at a time.
Today, nearly 50 million Americans live in the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI)—zones where wildfire meets suburbia, and ordinary wildfires can escalate into full-blown conflagrations. In these extreme events, homes and their contents become fuel, driving structure-to-structure fire spread and releasing a toxic mix of chemicals far more hazardous than those from natural biomass burns. Heavy metals, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and other pollutants are propelled into the air via contaminated ash and smoke, posing serious health risks to first responders and residents alike.In this episode of Disaster Discussions, we spotlight a groundbreaking research initiative led by IBHS collaborators from UC Berkeley and funded by the California Air Resources Board (CARB). For the first time, scientists are quantifying the emissions produced during large-scale conflagrations—work that’s reshaping our understanding of air pollution, public health, and climate resilience.This month's guests include: Dr. Nathan Kreisberg, Senior Research Scientist for Aerosol Dynamics Inc, Dr. Allen Goldstein, Professor for the Dept of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Dept of Environmental Science, Policy, & Management, and Michael Milazzo, Graduate Student Researcher & PHD Candidate, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering.
Wildland-Urban Interface fires are among the most destructive wildfire events, transforming into conflagration scenarios that result in catastrophic losses of homes, infrastructure, and lives. This episode of Disaster Discussions dives into cutting-edge work with research partners at UC Berkeley based on findings from the IBHS Structure-to-Structure Fire Spread experiment. The discussion focuses on looking at how wildfires spread into urban communities, exploring how the researchers are improving fire modeling and gathering real-world data to help improve fire modeling tools that can help predict and prevent these urban fire disasters. This episode's guests are Dr. Michael Gollner, UC Berkeley Associate Professor and Deb Faculty Fellow from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Dr. Wuquan Cui, Postdoc at UC Berkeley.
In this episode of Disaster Discussions, host Rachael Penton Gauthier explores KB Home’s groundbreaking Dixon Trail development in Escondido, CA—the first neighborhood in the U.S. to receive a provisional Wildfire Prepared Neighborhood™ designation, with every home in the development constructed to the Wildfire Prepared Home Plus level-IBHS's most rigorous wildfire resilience standard. KB Home’s President and Regional General Manager Steve Ruffner shares the bold design choices and strategic cost trade-offs that made this resilience possible, as well as feedback from residents who have made this neighborhood their home and saved on insurance in the process. The episode also dives into the policy, planning, and insurability hurdles builders face and outlines KB Home’s forward-looking commitment to wildfire-resilient construction.
What happens when a storm meets smart construction choices? Mark Fowler from the Alabama Department of Insurance and Dr. Lawrence Powell from the University of Alabama's Center for Risk and Insurance Research join Disaster Discussions to unpack a groundbreaking new report on IBHS FORTIFIED Home construction performance during Hurricane Sally- a strong category two storm that struck the highest concentration of FORTIFIED homes in the nation. This episode dives into how homes built or retrofitted to FORTIFIED standards significantly outperformed both traditional construction homes and those built to municipal building codes—sustaining less damage and saving homeowners and insurers millions of dollars.
It's been 20 years since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast in August 2005, bringing wind and record storm surge to areas in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Stormchaser Josh Morgerman- also known as iCyclone- joins the podcast for a discussion about the record storm surge coastal Mississippi experienced during Katrina, sometimes referred to as the "Forgotten Coast" in the months after the storm. We also discuss the cultural and economic toll the storm caused, and what the recovery looks like two decades later. Plus, Josh discusses his FORTIFIED "Hurricane House" that he has made home on the Mississippi coast, and he takes us around the world to discuss his cyclone chasing adventures.
Every summer IBHS welcomes a diverse and talented group of interns and fellows from across the country to work closely with our world-class engineers, scientists, and communications professionals. The scope of their projects is wide- assisting with full-scale research, developing state of the art instrumentation and electrical solutions, running lab equipment to conduct research, designing and constructing building systems, and much more. Most of the participants are students studying IT, engineering, meteorology, or communications in some form- spanning from undergraduates to postdocs. Some of these students even return to IBHS later in their careers. We learn more about these interns and fellows and what they learned this summer at IBHS in a two-part special.
Every summer IBHS welcomes a diverse and talented group of interns and fellows from across the country to work closely with our world-class engineers, scientists, and communications professionals. The scope of their projects is wide- assisting with full-scale research, developing state of the art instrumentation and electrical solutions, running lab equipment to conduct research, designing and constructing building systems, and much more. Most of the participants are students studying IT, engineering, meteorology, or communications in some form- spanning from undergraduates to postdocs. Some of these students even return to IBHS later in their careers. We learn more about these interns and fellows and what they learned this summer at IBHS in a two-part special.
The In-Situ Collaborative Experiment for the Collection of Hail In the Plains (ICECHIP) wraps up after 6 weeks of scientific storm chasing in pursuit of hail-producing thunderstorms. In this episode, we discuss the project's success in the field, highlight valuable partnerships formed during the project, and hear some of the early insights surrounding the data collected. Plus, looking ahead to how ICECHIP scientists will use this data to better understand hailstorms.
In this episode of Disaster Discusssions host Rachael Penton Gauthier sits down with Geotrek's Dr. "Hurricane Hal" Needham to discuss his three-step process for disaster risk assessment that includes the importance of knowing the deep disaster history of a location, identifying the possible risks in a particular neighborhood or region, and understanding how shifts from environmental changes can impact the potential for extreme weather. Plus, how this knowledge can be used to empower communities to better understand their vulnerabilities to natural disasters.
6 weeks, 15 institutions, 4 international partners, and as many hailstorms as possible- that's the mission of the In-situ Collaborative Experiment for the Collection of Hail In the Plains (ICECHIP). In this episode of Disaster Discussions we hear from some of the scientists involved in the historic project as it kicks off in Boulder, Colorado.
In this episode of Disaster Discussions Research Project Scientist Jake Sorber joins the podcast for a discussion on why hail is an extreme loss driver across the United States, and the reasons behind why that trend is growing. Plus, an in-depth conversation about lessons learned from a case study of significant hail that fell in Rock Hill, SC and a look ahead to what IBHS scientists are aiming to learn during ICECHIP- the largest scientific field campaign since the 70s devoted to studying hail.
This Disaster Discussions episode highlights the development of the new Wildfire Prepared Neighborhood technical standard- the first and only science-based standard that aims to meaningfully reduce the probability of a built-environment conflagration in the neighborhoods where it is applied. Guests on this episode are Dr. Ian Giammanco, IBHS Managing Director of Standards and Data Analytics and Lead Research Meteorologist and Evan Sluder, Research Project Engineer. The conversation includes an explanation of the science behind the standard's four core principles and details how the standard can be applied in both new-build and retrofit scenarios. The episode also covers how the standard can be used in a post-wildfire setting to analyze a neighborhood's risk factors for conflagration. Plus, a discussion on the first project putting the standard into operation in Escondido, CA and how the science could be used to rebuild more resiliently in LA county.
In this episode of Disaster Discussions we're joined by Dr. Geoff Boughton, Adjunct Associate Professor at the James Cook University Cyclone Testing Station and Dr. Korah Parackal, IBHS Research Engineer and Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the James Cook University Cyclone Testing Station. This discussion looks back at the evolution and landfall of category four Cyclone Tracy that struck Darwin, Australia on Christmas Eve 1974, leaving 90% of the town's residential homes uninhabitable and tens of thousands of residents homeless. We discuss how Tracy's devastating impact sparked changes to the way Australia's housing was built, and how these changes eventually led to a nationwide building code. Today homes in Australia are structurally engineered to withstand high winds throughout the entire country and include provisions for low cycle fatigue, a continuous load path or tie-down chain, and are designed for high internal pressures.
In this episode of Disaster Discussions host Rachael Penton Gauthier is joined by Dr. Murray Morrison, IBHS Managing Director of Research and Steve Hawks, Senior Director for Wildfire for Part 2 of a discussion about the LA County wildfires. This episode details how the Palisades Fire started and the unique factors that allowed this wildfire to morph into a devastating urban conflagration. Plus, an in depth discussion on IBHS's post-event investigation of the Palisades Fire. Finally, the episode analyzes lessons learned from field observations of both the Eaton and Palisades post-event investigations and how the results will help better prepare southern California homeowners for future wildfire events.
In this episode of Disaster Discussions host Rachael Penton Gauthier is joined by Dr. Murray Morrison, IBHS Managing Director of Research and Steve Hawks, Senior Director for Wildfire. Part 1 of this discussion details the extreme meteorological conditions that allowed several wildfires to spark in early January in LA county, and details the conditions that allowed the Eaton and Palisades fires to transition into urban conflagrations. This episode highlights the working partnership between IBHS and CAL FIRE to expand wildfire research in California. Plus, learn about the logistics and operations of IBHS's post-event investigation of the Eaton Fire.
In the first episode of 2025, we take a look back at some of the memorable moments from Disaster Discussion in 2024. This episode recaps season 3, and highlights favorite clips from some of our special guests that joined us on the podcast.
In this episode of Disaster Discussions we sit down with WCNC Chief Meteorologist Brad Panovich and IBHS Lead Research Meteorologist Dr. Ian Giammanco to discuss the communication challenges of messaging for historic weather events such as Hurricane Helene. Topics discussed include: messaging seasonal tropical forecasts, communicating differences in storm intensity both before and during landfall, and messaging for systems with big inland impacts. We also discuss how best to communicate extreme weather events, such as the historic rainfall event that Helene brought to the mountains of North Carolina as well as perceptions around flood insurance for communities away from the coast.
In this episode of Disaster Discussions we highlight the partnership between IBHS, Triple-I, and the U.S. Small Business Administration with an encore presentation of the LinkedIn audio event: Weathering the Storms: Strategies for Small Business Resilience. Then, we talk with Chuck Miccolis, IBHS Managing Director of Commercial Lines, to hear more about common vulnerabilities of commercial buildings, as well as our research-backed mitigation methods for resiliency. In this episode we also help small business owners and commercial property owners better understand how they can better prepare for a range of hazards, including hurricanes, severe thunderstorms, wildfire, and severe winter weather. Plus, we highlight a few proactive mitigation strategies that business owners can use to help ensure business continuity.
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