Tuesday March 27, 10:29 am Eastern Time Press Release

SOURCE: Institute for Business & Home Safety

National Center for Natural Disaster Safety Set to Break Ground in Tampa; Noted Hurricane Expert to Speak at Ceremony

TAMPA, Fla., March 27 /PRNewswire/ -- The Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) and MOSI, Tampa's Museum of Science & Industry, will break ground next month on the country's first center for understanding and surviving natural disasters.

The National Center for Natural Disaster Safety is a partnership between IBHS and MOSI that will help visitors from around the country better understand natural disasters and how to protect their homes and families from them. One product of the partnership will be new interactive exhibits on earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, hail and wildfires in the MOSI science center. IBHS will also use the center to provide training for architects, engineers and other building professionals.

The groundbreaking ceremony will be held April 10, 2001 at 11:30 a.m. on the MOSI campus (4801 E. Fowler Avenue). The featured speaker will be Dr. William Gray, the country's leading hurricane forecaster and professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University. The event will launch the safety center partnership, as well as the construction of IBHS' new headquarters office building on the MOSI campus.

IBHS is a national non-profit initiative of the insurance industry to reduce deaths, injuries, property damage, economic losses and human suffering caused by natural disasters. The organization moved from Boston to Tampa last October, and is currently in temporary office space in the Westshore Business District.

For MOSI, the safety center is part of a five-year, $37 million expansion that will include the largest children's science center in the country, a charter school and renovation of existing exhibits.

SOURCE: Institute for Business & Home Safety

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2001