narrator: around the world, disasters are on the increase. in the past 1years, earthquakes, heat waves, flood hurrices, fire and volcaes have killed over a million people, affected another two illion, d caused4.5 trillion in damage. woman: i just never saw that much water. this street was probably this high. second won: the fir words i aid is, "o my god, everydy'sead," 'cause there was nobody coming out.

naator: our homeare where we look for shelter, but when a disaster strikes, we're on the frnt line. if you think your house is safe, think again. man: my house wasestroyed by the flood. narrar: we're going to reveal the hidden risks and ask, is your home built to last? third woman: building codes are critically important to life, safety, property, protection. second man: the public, they need to be asking these questions of the builder--why won't you build me aome that will survive? thrd man: i's either paa ttle mornow oray a helof a lot more later. narrator: we're going to discover how you can make your homeafer. third man: disasters are not natural. nature providesvents, but we ovide the vulnerabilities that take a

natural eve and make into a saster ororse, a catastrophe. narrator: on may 20, 2013, a force 5 tornado struck a small town inklahoma. [tornado siren wails] residents of moore had seen tornadoes before, but nothing like this--over a mile wide, wind speeds excded 100 miles per hour, rehing 210 miles per hour at its core. woman: i had just come back from the hospital from my 30-day postpartum from delivering my first daughter. and after lunch, we came home, and i was exhausted from being a new mom and passed out on the couch with my daughter cradled in my arms. and my husband was sitting in the living room with us watching the news, luckily. he had told

me to go get a bag together. i kind of thought he was joking. [tornado siren wails] i think what scared me the most is othe torna sirensat one point said, "get out. if you don't have an underground shelter, get out. you are not likely to survive." everybody in the neighborhood is trying to get t at ts point. t only ways t of this rt of the neighborhood are straight west, which of course is thdirection of the tornado. narrator: sheridan and her husband escaped across the open fields. they were cky. in ju o hours,4 ople died and 377 were injured. once the storm passed, sheridan and her husband rushed home. broderick: wwere the first ones back in the neigorhood, and it looked like a bomb had exploded. it looked

like evebody wasrobably dead. when he pulled up to our now-destroyed lot, i was like, "why are you stopping? where are we?" i didn't even recognize where we were. all the exterior walls were gone, the front of the house was completely gone. the thing that finally made me recognize where we were was our tree. narrator: for max, sheridan, and month-old taylor, the car they were sitting in was all they had left. broderick: it's emotional, especially just thinking how many people had died. i mean, really.he emotial shock deinitely coinues. i know a lot of people that still have a very hard time during storm season. there

definitely a lingering trauma thatill probab never lea. narrator: sheridan's family, like so many in moore, were left with thing. bt couldheir home have been saved? it's a question scientis are tryin to answe woman: we wanted to build a facility that would allow us to mimic very carefully what mother nature does to homes. it is a unique facility. there's no place else like this in the entire world. nartor: the colina-bas insurancenstitute f business d home fety, orbhs, want to make o propertiestronger and saf. woman: i would say the closest analogy to what we're doing is the insurance institute for hihway safetthat crashests vehles, car and thedea hind thais to gi consume iormationo that ty make a chce aboutafer vehles d, agai to redu damage d injuri and fatities. wlook

wind, wer, firehail, an agi. and th will gi us a beer oppornity as ilding sciensts and as t insuran indury worng with the construction industry and public policymakers to figure out ways to minimize damage. man: we're able to do tests on buildings in a way that nobody else in the world can, where we can build a full size one- or two-story residential or commeral building and then subject it to hurricane-force winds to look athe way th fors of theind act the buildi, how th pass thugh the buding. w'lbe testg a wooframe hoe built tohe crent cod the buiing code it cove 90% of e countr we're coming into the inside of thhouse, thentryway an hallwa a kitchenff to the right-hand side, an eat-in kitchen with a littleit of a bay wdow for a ttle bit o an cent.

narrator: the test house is laid out as a normal family home. the institute has invited journalists and experts to see how a hou built to andard building des will fair. it takes over a hundred huge ns to recate the structive pow of a hurrane.

deroyed. in a hurricane or tornado, a typical american home is wrecked. rochman: i don't think that most people appreciatthat building codes are a politil issue. i think they just assume that they've bought a house, therefore, it must well built or somebody wouldn' be able sell it to them, muclike you can't sell milk if it's past the expiration da. it simpl isn't true. the average american home, unfortunately, is pretty brittle. and by that, i mean it's not designed to be resilient, and that the building code itself is really a minimum. so when people brag about their hou being built to code, it's really nothing torag abou narratorafter th2013 tnado, moo raised its wind-design standard from 90 to 135 miles per hour.t became the only municipality in america

with a tornado-resistt code. b making ore'homes safer has dded upto $5,00to the price of an avage hoe. for some, the cost of peace of mind s a hard sl. man: pple buy house, theyook at aouse, they look athe crown molding and the granite countertops it's got a copper farm sink and faucet and a cool fireplace and wood flrs. ey don't ask a question about how's it built. doest have hurricane cps on every rter? or how much lumber does it have in the roof? what kind of garage door does it have? you know, i've told realtors, you know, that you need to do a better job selling. you've got a better home here. tell them about the 3 to $5,000 worth of extra material that's in this home that's gonna save your personal belongings.

narrat: but someuilders in moore n't ink the stricter building codes go far enough. ma building gulations re in oklahoma, likall across america or everywhere that i can think ofthe codes e meant to keep people safe. and do they keep people safe? i don't think so. what you're looking at right now ian area th's bn hit 3 mes in t last 20 yea. but unfounatel the hom that a still her, they're built to a code that although is the best in thetate, it's still not enough to survive oklahoma environment. moore has been hisomewhere around 28 times since 1895. will it happen again? absolutely it will. will

it hit right here? who knows? it's a crapshoot. anybody's guess as to whether it'll happen again right here, but it will happen again. it'just th reality of it all. broderick: come on inside. why don't you ce inside. narrator:ith that imind, sridan isn't takingny chances. broderick: so our storm shelter, which i would aolutely t have rebut withou we did no have one before, which is why ended upeaving. its asically a metal box in our garage, but even with an f5 tornado, if the house comes down, the box isn't going anywhere. essentially, the debris will help keep everythinclosed, and i don't think i've ever heard of one of them being sucked out of the ground. narrator: in recent years, america has suffered more economic losses from disasters than any otherountry. and according to the u.n., it's

getting worse. extreme events are onhe rise.n 2017, wildfires destroyed whole communities in california, the largely wood-built homes setting a fuel for the fire, whilen the sameear, in hston, texa destating flds hit 150,000omes. arnd 100 eople diedresidentdidn't know th the locion ofheir hos put themt risk. man:he u.s. pulationn 1970 w 200 milon. currt population is 325 million. l ose peoe have to li somhere, anthey ar't cessari going tbeiving in hazd-free olow-haza areas. nartor: citielike houst have seen their suburbs expand as urban land becomes scarcer. it'here thayou findome of the poest home the cit

won: it waprobably few daysrior tthe stormaking andfall at we reived ales nd warnis to prere for theurricaneso i prey much wasreparingor a wintorm. and they told us we was gonna have a sstantial amounof rain, but couldn't image the amount of rain that we received. narrator: the waters of lake houston, a reservoir to the northeast of the city, were calm today, but in august 2017, an extraordinary 17 inches of ra fell in ls than a d. the risg watershreatene affent lakede homesuilt o landesignat as flooplain, lad tended tprotect th ty. to savthem, thflood gatere opene devastang poormostly bck neighrhoods downstream.

the water pidlrose to ov 30 feet. dris still rks its psage. trically, entire family was sweptaw in the torrent. woman: the water was coming down l the wall it was ming own in mbedroom.nd it wa ust wateeverywhere. was just--itust happed so fa. cond wom: it waseally ba i codn't believe i i just codn'-never w that mh wate this stet was pbably this high. ms: wha's czy to me islike there's a l of peop at live ght heren housto and th were noaffectedy thetorm aall. and mean, they ve no ea. theyave no idea. davis: i was in the flood water in this home for twdays. it probably was maybe an inch or two above the windowsill. this is tually h i had to sleep. iot in the--i'm so sml. i

gotnto thisindow,nd this is wheri just spt. i ha no ea to kw if this is a flood pla. i had o idea. a the ate-'vebeen livg here years d it wan't place thaflooded,o. nrator: arey was in tuble. like my in hereighboood w didn't know ty were i alood zon she h no floo suranceso she h to relyn overnmenaid fromema, e federaemergencmanageme ency. fe paid foher emergcy accomdation, but aftethat, auey was oher own. davis: [sighs] i just don't think ey offer the assistance that we should have receive you kno this is all that they're offering? and i thought it was very rude to say that it was tax payers' money, but my response was i've been a tax payer basically all my lif so a part of th money longeto me.

man: tragically, over 80% of the people who had flood damage did not have flood insurance. so over 80% of the damages weren't insured. and that now means many of these people are still struggling to figure out how they're gonna rebuild their ves, more importantly, how they're going to ruild their omes without insurance. year after year, we're seeing as many as 10 or more natural hazards that exceed a billionollars i losses. and that's a trend at, unfortunately, doesn't seem to be slowing down. here in the united states, it's also we have more stuff, increasng wealth. so cost of disasters have not necessarily followed flationaryrends as mh as we ild bigg homes wh more valu that's alsoriving t crease idisaster narrar: monthafter e dister, ma houses e still derelict,heir oers unab to affd repair desperatfor funds, se have had to ll at knkdown

pres--a hose onceworth $100,000 seing for little as 17,000. man: allight, yoguys rdy tgo back work? narratoraudrey w saved b all hands and hearts, a non-profit group that helps dister victi around e wld. e kept herome. support like this has been a lifeline for poor communities li audrey's, but t can only help a fraction of those affected. woman: i think fema and the governnt is struling a lite bit. this huicane season was wild, so fema is spread really, really thin. i think they received over 800,000 applications just for harvey alone. so i don't know exactly the process and how it can be improved, but i do know that they--this is, i think, kind of a wake-up call that they need to maybe reassess how it all works. nrator: all hands and hrts has pulled in volunteers from all over the country who want to help out. davi hands andearts. y see my smile. they really touched my

heart. i just el like it was a miracle from heaven, i really . narrator: raing her home above water level would be the best protection against future floods, but it'not an optn foaudrey. davis: my first advice would be, regardless of whether they tell you it's a flood prone area or not, make sure you have flood insurance. believe me, from this day forward, audrey will. narrator: almost 5,000 miles from houston in the northwest united kingdom is the lake district. it's an area of outstandg naturabeauty, b idecember013, the tranquily was to apart. [under] they'd already had the wettest december on record when storm desmond struck. swollen rivers burst thr banks, tearing up

roads and flooding homes. over 13nches of rain was recorded in just 24 hours. the swollen rivers swept down tards the county town of carlisle with catastrophic results. martyn dyer-smith's home was floode dyermith: wel, i'm sure you'll be amazed when you see the size of this river. it's tiny. more like a drain or a stream than a river. can you believe itthis littlstream flooded out 800 houses locally here. and we had a meter and a half in our house, and that's about mile away om this river. and it looks like a beniglittle strm right w. but it' different when the flood water's about, i can tell you that. narrator:oday, the water is ng gone, bt 5 ars ago tis

was one of the streets affected, the blue ribbons ed to tree a reminder of flood water levels. dyer-smh: the water was lik series of fntains wn it came in through the house initially. it was shooting up. a in factthe pressureas so high that it ew the boas off the floor. we had no prior rning thathis was a flood area. there was nothing in the deeds. the estate agent said nothing. the people who owned the house said nothing about that risk. we found out later that their had been floods, but a long while ago. narrator: but the wait for the next flood is likely to be much shorter, as oncrare weher even become normal woman:e can't reallyfforto surpris by so freak weher even i thinkhe time for to be sprised iover becau we ow the rks, we

know thaclimate ange is playing its part, and we can't claim ignorance and say, "oh, our system failed. sorry, it was the weather." i think that excuse is not acceptable going forward. rrator:ut this gged landsca is not at it seem fores have been cleared a the cour of the ver has en reeineered generations of farmers. once this land would have flooded after rainstorms, slowing down the water's rush towards the sea. man: we a getting oaverage the same amount of rainfall annually. the difference is that we'reetting tt rainfa ry, veryuickly ia short perd of tim so when it lls in e highlas, like u see her then thatater gets very quickly into the river itself,

and that river water moves downriver really, really quick to our towns and our cities that ha flood difrences, t often those flood differences were abslutely adeate for th climatehat used tbenot necessarily for the climate today. when whave a magediver, oftenhat meanit' straigened, i's orly deeped, and en when ter rises, bause that river can't connect to its flood plain, when you do get these severe flood ents, it's much,uch worse because the overeineering that's happened over the last hundred years or so. arror: whentorm desmond reached carlisle, this qui town was left with a clean-up bill of half a billion dollars. now the streets are back to normal. with the flood well behind them, martyn and his wife allison are enjoying their beautifully refurbished home. flood insurance paid for the rebuild.

surminski: flooinsurance is an important element of protecting people's property in the face of disasterand here ithe uk, we aractuallyuite luc that we have aell funconing fld insan system.o most ople whoive in t uk are aually inred agait floodin which cpared tmany oth countries ithe worlwho don't havflood insurae is uite a snificanteature. narrato but for st resides in highisk floodreas, insurance is unaffordable. so the british government has introdud a subsided scheme called fld re. i's funded by a small levy on all british homeowne. but on i own, inrance is t enough. surminski: flood re is really a temporary stop gap measure t give ose in higrisk flood areas the assurance that there will be flood insurance available for them, but it doesn't really address the fact

that going forward this might be a very unsustainable approach or the whole of the cotry. narrator: an acute housing shortage in the uk means that new homes are being built in flood risk areas. and with increased flooding predicted by scientists due to climate change, the insurance burden will be even bigger. disasters are also on the increase in the developing world. man:ach year dasters disace tensf millions o people. they cause over $520 billion worth of economic losses. they plunge an additional 26 million people into poverty every year. so these are enormous impacts. narrator: on november 8, 2013, typhoon haiyan hit tacloban in the phippines. thphilippis

has on erage 20yphoons year, buhaiyans the mo powerl to have er hit the country. today, merlita marga and her husband visit their old neighborho. the memoes of what they call typhoon yolanda are still vivid. narrar: the dth toll s beenstimatedt over 600 and morthan a milon hom were damaged.

narrator: after the typhoon, the vast numbers of displaced people had no other choice than tolive in mashift tentwhile the autrities madplans for their future. and that plan was to move peopleut of dang on he coast tsafer inla homes. man what we're tryinto do now is move falies frothe danger zone. we're going to move 40% of e populati to the north, so th'sbout 17,00

families. it takes a l of time aneffort. need to pvide thm all thbasic needs. for every area, we are going to put up school buildings, daycare centers, police stations. it's quite a big change. narrator:n octobe2017, ove 18,000 homes were provided for the haiyan victims in a new township knn as taclon nort it'40 kilomers inla fm the ast. t concretblock budings ca withstd wind seds of uto 0 mil per hou publi uildingsike schos are al being ftified twithstand typhns. the'rea hi priority. displaced children are vulnerab to abuse d sexual exploition.

narrator:erliga marga lost erything ring theyphoon, but has now lived in tacloban north for nearly a year. marga: compared to my old house, i'm already set to

stahere becau this is m dream house. i stay here with my mily becau we will a safe to stay and to live here. narrat: it' early days, b taclob north sms to be workg. howev, ck othe coa, flimsy, new-but houses appear w. therare still a lot f peopleiving re and many ve nowhe else too. [indistct chatter [indistct chatter

narrator: r people le vic, life remains a calculated risk. 350 miles south of tacloban is the capital of the philippines, manila. it's one of the world's most densely populated and fastest-growing cities. in makati barangay, or district, the super rich live alongside the orest of t city. large, ulanned cmunities have sprung up. but rich or po, they all have one thg they shar-the risk of a catastrophic earthquake. makati sits on top of the west valley ult. theisk of a mor earthquake in a densely-populated city iall