Having been a Water/Wastewater utility Director in Palm Beach County, FL, I have learned a lot of lessons about how to mitigate the impact of such storms to our customers. The single word that describes it all is: PREPAREDNESS. Until the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons, PBC had not been hit directly by a major hurricane for nearly 30 years. That came to a screeching halt in early September 2004 with back to back hurricanes Frances and Jean, and 2005 with Wilma. The biggest impact by far with these Cat 1-3 hurricanes is extended power outages, and of course flooding if you have a plant or major pump stations near the coast. Devastating Cat 5 hurricanes like Andrew in Miami in 1992 and Dorian in the Bahamas this week are a different story, of course, and about the only thing that can be done in these cases is recovery as quickly as possible, for which advance plans can be made.
The impacts of the three 2004-5 hurricanes in PBC were these:
1. Extended power outages which caused sewer backups into streets and homes. Being a flat county elevation-wise, PBC has over 900 pump stations; neighborhood, master and regional stations. In 2004 only the regional stations had back-up generators supplemented by about 25 mobile generators. When our power went out system-wide for over 10-days, even with help from other Florida utilities, we didn't have enough generator capacity to keep up. We also didn't have enough fuel for the generators we did have, and fuel deliveries were also significantly impacted.
2. Low water pressure resulting in boil water notices due to big trees uprooting 4-6" water lines throughout the system reducing pressure as well as reduced water plant production due to minimal damage to water treatment plants and insufficient emergency generator capacity in our well fields.
3. PBC is an inland utility and did not have flooding problems, but the utilities along the coast did and when a plant or pump station is flooded, it is out of commission for a long time.
After the 2005 season we developed a new preparedness plan and presented it, along with a $19 million funding request, to our Board of County Commissioners. The crux of the plan was 100 new mobile generators for the ww pump stations and well fields. The w/ww plant generators were upgraded and underground fuel tanks added for a 30-day fuel supply. The plants were further hardened. Along with the new generators came 19 new personnel (out of 500 previous employees) to maintain and man the generators. A completely new Preparedness and Response Plan was developed. We joined the newly formed regional response group called Florida Warn, which led to each Florida utility to create rapid response assistance teams The good part about Florida Warn was the Interlocal Agreement everyone signed that detailed the logistics and administration for such assistance ahead of time so that there would be no confusion during or after the storm. While flooding was not our concern, I am currently consulting with Binghamton, NY whose 50-MGD wastewater treatment plant was completely wiped out in a 2011 500-year storm event along the Susquehanna River. As part of their reconstruction they are building a flood wall around the new plant to contain such future floods.
While Dorian mostly spared PBC, I am confident that our new PREPAREDNESS would have mitigated the storm impacts. Does anyone else have suggestions for others, not only w/ww utilities, but stormwater and transportation networks, that would increase PREPAREDNESS for hurricanes?
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Bevin Beaudet P.E., M.ASCE
President/Owner
Bevin A. Beaudet, P.E., LLC.
West Palm Beach FL
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-04-2019 03:54
From: Robert Foster
Subject: Hurricane Dorian
In the east we have hurricanes, the mid-west has tornadoes, the west coast has fires and mud slides and they worry about earthquakes. Not sure which is worse - depends on where you are, perhaps.
But at least with hurricanes we can see them coming and can have a couple of days to get ready.
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Robert Foster P.E., L.S., M.ASCE
Owner
Hopkinton MA
Original Message:
Sent: 09-03-2019 14:40
From: Dilip Barua
Subject: Hurricane Dorian
It is great to see the discussion on Hurricane Dorian initiated. As we speak, the Hurricane, after inflicting catastrophic havoc to the Bahamas, is now rated as CAT-2, and is forcasted to pursue a northeastern trajectory hugging the Florida coast, perhaps encountering the coasts of the Carolinas. People who have bitter and agonizing experience with Hurricanes know by now – what a slow moving, coast-hugging storm means in terms of incessant rainfall, sustained storm surge and wind damage.
If one is in the storm trajectory cone, perhaps one would pray for High Pressure domes in their area – because such domes can force a Low Pressure storm to find a different trajectory. Thanks to such domes, H. Dorian will probably spare the US southeast coasts by not making a landfall.
Let us discuss further on this storm, as well as in general. I have a piece on storm surge in my website: https://widecanvas.weebly.com/science--technology/storm-surge
There is also a very interesting National Academies Press publication: Attribution of Extreme Weather Events in the Context of Climate Change: https://www.nap.edu/21852
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Dr. Dilip Barua, Ph.D, P.Eng, M. ASCE
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Website: https://widecanvas.weebly.com
Original Message:
Sent: 08-30-2019 14:11
From: Tirza Austin
Subject: Hurricane Dorian
All of our members in Florida and Georgia are in our thoughts this weekend as the states prepare for what could be the strongest hurricane to hit the east coast in three decades. If you are looking for opportunities to contribute to the relief effort, you can do so here.
This thread is for members to share personal experiences, facilitate assistance with hurricane related questions, and discuss the technical aspects of Hurricane Dorian.
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Tirza Austin
Senior Coordinator, Online Community
American Society of Civil Engineers
1801 Alexander Bell Drive
Reston, VA 20191
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