Preparing for the next "Sandy" - More resilient and better building performance is necessary

Superstorm Sandy has exposed New York City's vulnerabilities, as well as tested our capabilities to withstand a natural disaster. Unfortunately, we now know that more resilient infrastructure and better building performance are necessary to avoid tragic consequences of what mother nature is now expected to throw at us every few years. We know that another Sandy is coming and we need to be prepared. Over the past few months we have been involved with different projects addressing post-Sandy remediation work and design of better building performance. Mechanical and electrical rooms are being relocated to higher floors or waterproofed top to bottom; marine grade doors and windows are being installed in critical areas and standby electricity generators have become the number one commodity that New York City building owners ask for. Design professionals are scrambling to find the best flood mitigation devices. The Port Authority of NYNJ is going to be spending over $5 billion on rebuilding and flood proofing nine of their sub-stations. Massive corrosion caused by salt water infiltration destroyed most of their mechanical and electrical systems. Temporary flood mitigation systems and roofs with wind uplift capabilities are among the priority projects Port Authority is working on. Julio Ravelo, a vice president at Thornton Tomasetti (TT), has been working with private clients on implementation of temporary flood mitigation devices. One property within the high-risk "Zone A" that TT has prepared construction documents for, is likely to become "the first in the city with building-wide dry flood-proofing design." Ravelo said. TT employed post-and-beam type flood barriers as manufactured by EKO Flood USA. The system is scheduled to be installed at this property was most recently employed to prevent the River Danube from flooding Prague. While the rest of Europe suffered catastrophic flooding this past year, Prague deployed their flood barriers and contained the mighty Danube within its banks, even with a surge of over 30 meters. A video of the Prague system can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATsjLn5Txvk. While TT is not alone in their efforts, they have successfully deployed their expertise gained in battling seasonal flooding in Louisiana and Florida to the Metro-New York market. Safe Haven Enterprises is new to the New York market, and they manufacture mission critical protective building systems worldwide. Safe Haven offers a product line "designed to keep ahead of the growing need for building structures that will protect humans against explosions, chemical releases, fire, forced entry, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricane, terrorism, and other mission critical needs that arise today or in the future." Safe Haven's products are currently being used around the globe. Alta Baker, the president and CFO of Safe Haven, has had a long and very impressive military career, therefore her passion to save lives was the main reason her business was established. Her doors are already being used in New York City tunnels as they proved to be an excellent mitigation device. Alta can be contacted for more info at [email protected]. We don't know when the next Sandy is going to hit us again, but we know it is inevitable. The time is now to make sure that we do what's necessary to protect our biggest investments, our buildings. There are tons of proper mitigation devices and waterproofing systems and construction materials available on the market. Please do your research as new technology and innovative alternatives and worth investing in. Dorothy Wasiak is a vice president at PCGNY Corp., New York, N.Y.