Advocating for Your Community During Building Safety Month Building Safety Month is the month of May! Led by the International Code Council, this international campaign spearheads awareness about the importance of modern building codes and strong building code enforcement. Week 4 of Building Safety Month emphasizes the importance of advocating for your community. We all have a role in ensuring the places where we live, work and play are safe. All too often, building owners assume that their property is natural hazard-resistant and automatically safe when they’re not. It is our responsibility to know the steps to keep our spaces protected.   Local and state emergency managers, building code officials, and others also share responsibility for reducing their communities’ risk in dealing with natural hazards and other adverse events – before, during and after. As a result, these positions must engage in comprehensive conversations about topics central to mitigation. This includes conversations about how your jurisdiction can stay current with which codes they’ve adopted and an understanding of what basic code enforcement looks like. After all, even the most current building codes are still just minimum requirements. To help dispel common arguments made against the necessity of current building codes, FEMA created the Myth Busters Infographics for Homeowners and Renters. On top of that, FEMA’s Guide to Expanding Mitigation: Making the Connection to Codes and Standards also explains how to benefit from diverse codes and standards, communicate the hidden costs of failing to act, and work with departments to adopt and enforce codes that increase community resilience. This guide will help officials, especially those in emergency management, start conversations about codes to make communities more resilient. Did you know you can help start that conversation too? Reach out to your local officials and send them the link to the Building Codes Adoption Playbook for Authorities Having Jurisdiction. The publication provides general steps to help navigate the code adoption process and information about available FEMA grants for your community that can support building code adoption and enforcement activities. Below are some education and advocacy tips for talking about building safety: Visit inspecttoprotect.org to see if your local building codes are up to date. Talk to your network about building safety and share fact-based information and resources on your social media accounts. Plan community events to raise awareness or attend local events about building safety. Contact your area’s code officials to learn more about the building industry and discover local volunteer opportunities. Sign up for our Codealition to help us advocate for stronger building codes, learn about funding opportunities, free building science resources, and engage with us to promote building safety practices. For more information on Building Safety Month, visit www.iccsafe.org/advocacy/building-safety-month/2023-bsm-week-4/. To view and download FEMA resources, visit www.fema.gov/emergency-managers/risk-management/building-science/publications.   About Building Science Building Science is a central focus for FEMA. It involves the study of how natural hazards effect structures, while FEMA employs leading industry professionals in architecture, engineering, and seismology to bring solutions to these challenges our country’s infrastructure faces. FEMA Building Science is the Earthquake and Wind Programs Branch and Building Science Branch. For more information, contact fema-building-codes-program@fema.dhs.gov.