As storms shift, manufactured homes must be made stronger

Manufactured homes once were called mobile homes or trailers, but in many cases they’ve become more varied in appearance in recent decades, and it’s true they provide a more affordable form of housing for some people in a time when conventional housing is more and more expensive.

But a report by The News & Observer’s Martha Quillin has safety experts saying the safety standards for the homes need to be updated and strengthened. In Eastern North Carolina, those experts say, there could be up to 200,000 households settled in homes that might not withstand hurricane winds, because the wind-zone maps that govern manufactured housing are out of date. Indeed, the pattern when it comes to manufactured housing and regulation seems to be that rules are updated after hurricanes, when the damage done shows the need for stronger rules.

But nothing much has changed in decades, and it’s clear the federal regulators, working with state officials in states most vulnerable to storms, need to upgrade those wind-zone maps and also the rules for manufactured housing. Officials also should help people in manufactured housing when it comes to getting structural engineers to assess the safety of their homes. (Things such as carports or other structures people may add to homes, for example, could make them less stable.)

Yes, manufacturers say more rules might mean the homes would be more expensive. But when safety is concerned, that is not too great a price to pay.

This story was originally published July 10, 2017 at 2:00 PM with the headline "As storms shift, manufactured homes must be made stronger."