An Online Resource for Public Works Professionals
Today I am sharing a few resources available to help people learn more about building safety:
Interactive Building Safety Month Poster – by clicking on the green dots on this site you can find out the codes which ensure these building components are safe.
Fun Things for Kids: The ICC has available for download a coloring book and a crossword puzzle both related to building safety.
Safety Tip Handouts: Share or link to them on your own social media sites.
Green and Sustainable Buildings
Did you know anyone with access to the internet can check out current building codes at the International Code Council (ICC) website? It’s true! I am really excited about this because when I first started in the industry, I only had access to the physical books, and I always thought how much easier things would be if I could use and refer people to a digital version.
Well now we all can – building professionals and property owners and renters – basically everyone. All you have to do is visit the ICC website at https://codes.iccsafe.org/codes and check out any of the 15 codes they offer along with other related publications. They even have different years of the code available. Of course they offer a subscription service with more features which is probably something a building professional would be more interested in than a property owner.
When you get to the site, you can filter the codes in the menu on the left which you can see in the image on this page. You can also go to a specific year by clicking the drop down at the top and choosing the year and version of code. To view a code which shows up in the display, just hover over the graphic of the title and when you see “View as Basic” click on it. The site will take you to the code. You can check out different sections of the code by clicking on the list of sections on the left of the screen.
One important thing to keep in mind is even though the codes are there for free for us to read, they are still under copyright. So in accessing and using them we need to make sure we don’t infringe on the ICC copyright.
Every good campaign is backed up with a series of related webinars, and Building Safety Month has a group of them ready for you. The first one will focus on Tiny Homes and Affordability and will be held May 3, 2022, at 3-4 pm ET.
The International Code Council (ICC) will also host at least two Facebook live events. The first will be with the ICC VP of Innovation, Ryan Colker, on May 2, 2022, at 1 pm ET.
Below is a listing of the all the Building Safety Month webinars and Facebook live events to be held by the ICC throughout the month. You can register now or stop back later in the month to click on the link and check it out.
Facebook Live Events:
May 2, 2022, 1 pm ET – with ICC VP of Innovation, Ryan Colker
May 10, 2022, 1 pm ET – with ICC Senior VP of Training and Education, Matthew Winn
Building Safety Month Webinars (and yes, you read that right – for some reason there is no webinar in week 3 and two during week 4):
Week 1, May 3, 3-4 pm ET, Tiny Homes and Affordability
Week 2, May 10, 2-3 pm ET, Career Paths for Military Veterans
Week 4, May 24, 2-3:30 ET, Backflow Basics: Repair & Testing
Week 4, May 35, 2-3 ET, Pool Owner Safety 101
If you know of any building safety month events going on that people may want to attend, send them to me, and I’ll add them to a future post. You can comment here or message me on Twitter (@publicworks) or Facebook.
Well it’s here! Building Safety Month – a month to promote pretty much what it says: BUILDING SAFETY. And because all of us need to spend time in buildings or some sort of shelter, Building Safety Month is really for everyone. This year, the International Code Council (ICC) which sponsors the campaign has established four themes for each of the following four weeks:
Week 1, May 1 to May 8: Energy and Innovation
Week 2, May 9 to May 15: Building Safety Careers
Week 3, May 16 to 22: Disaster Preparedness
Week 4, May 23 to 31, Water Safety
Whether you are in the building industry or a related field or not, I hope to offer information and resources throughout the month for all of us. And if you are in the field, you can stop by the ICC Building Safety Month website to download toolkits, proclamations, and other materials to promote the month in your communities.
The other day a colleague told me about a bean field in Polk county, Minn., which catastrophically dropped 25 feet. After watching the video I noticed the land was located near a river, and the video points out that the land also seems to be pushing into the river. It made me wonder if some types of geographical features I had thought developed gradually over time instead occasionally occur all at once as this did. And now will this sunken area present to the river a path through which a new meander of the river may be created?
Then today in reading the history of Richland county, Ohio, I came across another story of a catastrophic drop in land which occurred in 1846 in an area about seven miles east of Mansfield. The area is now covered by several acres of water and is called Sites Lake – a small lake lying close to and north and east of the much larger Charles Mill Lake. But according to the history, Sites lake, which used to be called Uncle Jonas’ Lake, was at one time only about an acre in size. The story explains that the area around the lake, amounting to about eight acres, was very flat and rimmed with “hills of gentle slope.” So the owner of the property, who was the Uncle Jonas after which the lake was named, decided he would drain the lake and recover an extra acre of farm ground. To achieve this goal, he cut a ditch through the only break in the hills lying around the flat acreage so the water could drain from the lake to the “Black Swamp” which lay to the east. He completed his work on July 25, 1846, and successfully lowered the water level by eight feet.
Imagine Jonas’ surprise when instead of gaining more flat, dry land, he found the flat area around his lake had dropped and became flooded with water. Only the tops of trees could be seen and eventually over time even these too sunk out of sight increasing the size of the lake to six acres. Neighbors from miles around reported feeling a “quake and tremble” at the time the land catastrophically sank. Then, through the years, the land continued sinking until eventually the lake reached a size of eight to nine acres.
Later in the 1900s work was done to significantly develop the area around Uncle Jonas’ Lake. Today it is dwarfed by the much larger Charles Mill Lake which, according to the Charles Mill Lake website, is 1350 acres in size.
For Building Safety Month, which was in May, I looked for some books I could read to help me better understand disasters and resiliency. After compiling a list of about four or five books, I started this month on my reading. The first book I read was Under a Flaming Sky, The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894 by Daniel James Brown. It tells the story of how a hot, dry weather period and practices of the logging industry converged to create and feed a devastating fire that burned its way north through Minnesota in early September of 1894. And it tells the story of the people who faced that fire, some who survived and many who did not.
The book was a little slow at first as it introduced people and set the stage for the fire event. However, once I got to the point where the fire was roaring towards the town, I could not put it down and had to read to the end. Looking back, I liked that the author weaved together the people and facts of the town, weather, geology and topography of the area, fires in general, and the railroad. All of this helped me better understand the event and its impacts which were horribly devastating.
There seems to be several books of contemporary information about the fire along with others written more recently. Below are just a few which includes the one I read. The older ones can be read online for free, but newer books may need to be purchased or checked out from a local library. If your local library does not have a book, you can also request it from the National Emergency Training Center Library through an interlibrary loan:
A History of the Great Minnesota Forest FiresSandstone, Mission Creek, Hinckley, Pokegama, Skunk Lake by Elton T. Brown
Memorials of the Minnesota forest fires in the year 1894 : with a chapter on the forest fires in Wisconsin in the same year by William Wilkinson (this book has several photos of the area and several of the people impacted by the fire)
From the Ashes: The Story of the Hinckley Fire of 1894 by Grace Stageberg Swenson
Under a Flaming Sky, The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894 by Daniel James Brown
There is also a museum in Hinckley which tells the story of the fire. You can check out their website at http://hinckleyfiremuseum.com/. If I make it to that area of Minnesota, I am definitely stopping by the museum to learn more.
Overall, the book made me more aware of the history of the area, weather patterns through history, and how human nature, preparedness, weather, and industries can impact resiliency. While the story is disturbing, I really liked the book and would recommend it to anyone interested in fires, disasters, and resiliency of both individuals and communities.