WASHINGTON, D.C. — The American Wood Council, a trade group comprised of America’s leading wood building products companies, pledged its assistance to help Haiti rebuild safer, more earthquake-resistant buildings in the wake of its recent devastating earthquake. AWC also offered its technical expertise to U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton as reconstruction plans are developed and urged her to help prevent a recurrence of the devastation by focusing on building materials and methods that can effectively resist earthquakes, such as wood.

According to AWC’s Robert Glowinski, “Lessening the effects of a future earthquake in Haiti means helping the country rebuild with smarter materials and building methods than those employed in the past, and that means utilizing wood.

“Much of the severe devastation we’ve seen is from collapsed, older unreinforced concrete and masonry structures and could have been prevented if these structures had been built from wood. Unfortunately, unreinforced or lightly reinforced concrete and masonry structures can’t dissipate seismic energy or provide ductility under earthquake loads the way wood construction can. A recent full-scale test in Japan demonstrated that a six-story wood apartment building can withstand a 7.5 magnitude earthquake—considerably more severe than the one that struck Haiti,” Glowinski added. A video of this test can be found following this link.

Also, in a letter to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, AWC chairman Marc Brinkmeyer made AWC’s building expertise available to U.S. government officials as plans are developed to help the country rebuild.

Learn more and read AWC's letter to Secretary Clinton at www.awc.org.