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GAO-05-682R 1 (2005-05-19)

handle is hein.gao/gaocrptarun0001 and id is 1 raw text is: SGAO Accountability * Integrity Reliability United States Government Accountability Office Washington, DC 20548 May 19, 2005 The Honorable Robert E. Andrews The Honorable Steven C. LaTourette House of Representatives Subject: Federal Real Property: Lightning Protection Systems for Federal Buildings Your letter, dated June 30, 2004, to the Comptroller General expressed concern that the federal government may not have a uniform approach to protecting its facilities from lightning strikes. As a result, you requested a GAO study on issues related to whether the federal government should adopt a uniform standard for lightning protection systems. We selected four agencies for this study-the General Services Administration (GSA), the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), and the Department of Defense (DOD).' These agencies hold over 80 percent (in terms of square footage) of the government's owned and leased property. The objectives of this study were to determine (1) to what extent these selected federal agencies use applicable lightning protection standard(s) to help protect buildings they own from lightning strikes; (2) how these selected federal agencies assess the need for lightning protection systems on their buildings; (3) what practices and lightning protection standard(s) the General Services Administration uses when leasing privately owned buildings; and (4) what data exist related to the financial impact of lightning protection and damage to the federal government, such as the number of buildings with lightning protection systems, the costs associated with installing lightning protection systems, and the costs to repair buildings struck by lightning. We conducted our work from December 2004 through April 2005 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. This report summarizes information we provided to your staff during our April 29, 2005, briefing. The briefing slides are attached as enclosure I. Background According to the Lightning Protection Institute,2 lightning kills nearly 100 people every year in the United States, injures hundreds of others, and causes billions of 1 For purposes of this report, we use the term agency to include all four federal entities. The Lightning Protection Institute is a nationwide not-for-profit organization. According to the Institute, it seeks to promote and enforce quality and safety in the design and installation of lightning protection systems. GAO-05-682R Lightning Protection

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