Some question whether even Florida's code will work in the future. "Maybe the road followed is not indicative of the road ahead," says Chris Pyke, the U.S. Green Building Council's research vice president.

For USGBC, resilience is part of sustainability. "We need to be sure we are designing buildings and infrastructure for the plausible experience of the system over its lifetime," adds Pyke. "This is a standard-of-care issue as much as it is a code issue."

Timothy A. Reinhold, IIBHS' senior vice president for research, agrees. There are issues with how structural engineers address surge and flooding because design is based on historical weather data, he says.

But Wessel says it's not possible to predict the future, and current energy models already allow adjustments for weather. Designing for the worst-case scenario results in inefficiency and extra expense, he says.

On the commercial side, the Building Owners & Managers Association of Greater New York Inc. has been working with the office of Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) and the New York City Council on pending legislation, prompted by Sandy, to amend zoning and building codes. "We are supportive of the aims of the legislation to move emergency generators, fuel pumps and other critical building systems and are providing the practical side of how the provisions would work," says Sylvester A. Giustino, BOMA NY's director of legislative affairs.

Not too many owners are rushing to move systems to higher ground. "It comes down to whether there is space available and how much revenue will be lost," says John Brandstetter, BOMA NY's weather-response subcommittee chairman and managing director of the building-resiliency-planning and flood-risk-mitigation consultant that bears his name.

The bigger discussion among existing building owners—driven by insurance companies—is how to stop the water from getting inside in the first place, says Brandstetter. In reaction, "a lot of people are jumping into the removable-barrier market," he adds.

Meanwhile, the standards-writing community has been busy for some time working on extreme-weather issues. The Structural Engineering Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers is discussing new wind-speed maps for critical and essential facilities. And SEI even expects to include a chapter on tsunami load effects in the 2016 edition of ASCE/SEI 7.

For the first time, the 2015 edition of the model International Building Code (IBC) includes a mandatory storm-shelter provision for certain occupancies, such as schools. FEMA has a program subsidizing construction of shelters, which they call "safe rooms."

The next IBC also will have flood-related provisions tied to new risk categories for coastal zones. And stricter wind-load provisions for vertical glazing are coming in the 2015 IBC.

Digital tools to help assess vulnerabilities to all hazards are available for free from the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate.