and state restrictions on abortion.

offered researchers their first chance to assess the program’s benefits in a real storm. “It really was a prototypical storm that anybody who lives on the hurricane coast is liable to see in any given year,” said Malik.They collected insurance data on more than 40,000 houses in the affected area — a total insured value of $17 billion.

Fortified construction reduced claim frequency by 55% to 74%, depending on the designation level, and loss severity by 14% to 40%. Despite representing almost one-quarter of the policies studied, Fortified homes accounted for only 9% of claims.They even fared better than houses built to similar codes but without the official designation, likely due to the program’s more stringent verification requirements.“It really does start to bring home that there is value for everybody involved,” said Malik. “There’s value for the insurers, there’s value for the homeowner.”

Fortified doesn’t address all types of hurricane losses. Nearly half the claims in the study were from fallen trees, which require separate mitigation strategies.The enhanced standards do add cost: between 0.5% to 3% more for new construction, and 6% to 16% for retrofits. But the longterm benefits have spurred even disaster recovery nonprofits like Habitat for Humanity, Team Rubicon and SBP to use Fortified, often with the philanthropic support of insurers like Travelers and Allstate.

“Helping disaster-impacted homeowners build back smarter with storm-resilient construction and IBHS Fortified standards helps break the cycle of disaster and loss,” said Thomas Corley, chief operating officer at the New Orleans-based nonprofit SBP, which has built 671 homes to Fortified standards in nine states.

The potential insurance discounts also help recovering families by lowering their monthly expenses and boosting confidence that they can keep affording their homes. “For low-income families, this could mean the difference between upward mobility or years of financial instability after a disaster,” said Corley.More than 1,300 flights were canceled and some 200,000 people stranded Friday after an overnight fire at a substation 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) away cut power to Heathrow, and to more than 60,000 properties.

Heathrow said Saturday it had “added flights to today’s schedule to facilitate an extra 10,000 passengers.” British Airways, Heathrow’s biggest airline, said it expected to operate about 85% of its 600 scheduled flights at the airport Saturday.While many passengers managed to resume stalled journeys, others remained in limbo.

Laura Fritschie from Kansas City was on vacation with her family in Ireland when she learned that her father had died. On Saturday she was stranded at Heathrow after her BA flight to Chicago was canceled at the last minute.“I’m very frustrated,” she said. “This was my first big vacation with my kids since my husband died, and ... now this. So I just want to go home.”