Led by one of our residential team's up-and-coming young associate editors Kayla Devon, we've started a new Resilient Homes resource center here on builderonline.com.

We started thinking about this as we were talking with Journal of Light Construction senior editor Ted Cushman about his important article in BUILDER's January issue, "Tough Enough? State-of-the-art techniques can help your new homes stand up to flood, wind, and fire."

Audiences--in this "post-truth" and "fake-news" surreal world that we seem to have plunged into in the past couple of years--may question BUILDER's motives for such an initiative. Our purpose for the section, which consolidates articles, resources, conversation, and forums around the topic of homes built with the capacity to recover quickly from natural difficulties, you might say, is best expressed in Ted Cushman's own words in the Tough Enough story.

Ted's central assertion is this:

Every year, builders get better at resilient construction. And when it comes to these three major hazards—wind, flood, and fire—a homeowner may be far better off in a new home than in an existing older house. New high-­performance materials and components, and improved construction methods, offer greater resistance to the forces of natural disaster. The housing stock of the future will stand up far better to nature’s fury, and builders who adopt the best technology can help protect their clients from the risk.

Cushman's piece takes a closer look at what those technologies are.

Here's the rub.

Some people look at the word "resilience" and see it as a made-up term for regulators to get a hold of and use to create new cockamamie code that drives up costs, and pushes house prices farther out of the range of home buyers.

Some people view the term resilience as a notion that comes right out of the "climate change" political agenda of regulatory over-reachers that really has nothing to do with home building, design, construction.

Actually, our motives, and our louder, more committed voice on the topic of resilience, have no political basis at all, and do not align with or favor agencies whose reason for being appears, at times, to be to plague builders with unneeded, costly layers of time, attention, and money that wind up burdening home buyers.

The purpose and intent here can be said as simply as this. We want you to be able to build better.

And the fact is that, while on the surface, resilience speaks to homes that are engineered to recover quickly from nature's meaner moments, underlying that idea is a more human, more meaningful definition. Resilience, you see, accepts the reality of events--natural or human-caused--disrupting people's access to what keeps them alive and healthy. Water. The ability to be warm and dry. Electricity or some form of power. Access to food. Access to healthcare. Access to other people.

When vitally important in- or out-flows of access are cut off, as happens with natural or human-made disasters, resilience is about a rate of recovery of those in- and out-flows. It goes almost without saying that if the promise of home builder to home buyer is that "this new home will enhance the quality of your life," reflecting value in real-time and over time, that means that when, not if, bad things happen in nature or because of people, a home needs to perform the task of enhancing one's likelihood of regaining vital resources quickly if they're lost.

What we appreciate Ted Cushman's and Kayla Devon' efforts for is their willingness and ability to look out among you for bright spots of engineering and design progress in what will be an ongoing perpetual journey toward homes and communities that are truly resilient. Their stories spotlight ways, here and there, some among you are applying brilliance to nature's challenges, and they're passionately committed to sharing that brilliance more widely with you. No political agenda. Just building better.

So, we welcome you to our new, committed effort to insight, resources, and open conversation on Resilient Homes here. Please join the conversation. Preferably before the next disaster hits.