Hurricane Helene hit Florida’s Massive Bend area as a Category 4 hurricane with 140 mph winds. To this point, 33 fatalities have been reported. And whereas there was widespread flooding, together with the closely populated cities of Tampa and St. Petersburg, Tampa Common Hospital, located proper alongside Tampa Bay, has managed to remain dry.
That is on account of a 5- to 10-foot excessive barrier often called an AquaFence, which is going viral on a number of platforms due to the way it appears to have protected the area’s solely Degree 1 trauma heart.
As #HurricaneHelene continues, the AquaFence at TGH stands agency. The water-impermeable barrier is designed to resist storm surge as much as 15 toes. It has labored via a number of rain occasions to forestall storm waters from impacting hospital operations. #WeAreTGH #StormWatch pic.twitter.com/papsd6oPg2
— Tampa Common Hospital (@TGHCares) September 27, 2024
AquaFence was based in 1999 and has workplaces in Norway and New Jersey. In line with the company’s website, its techniques are “defending greater than $30 billion value of actual property in the US alone,” together with every part from accommodations to fuel stations to a Shake Shack.
The product is designed to be put in shortly and (pretty) simply. In 2023, AquaFence USA President Thomas Briedis advised local outlet, WTSP Tampa 10, that 100 toes of AquaFence could be put in in half-hour.
“They arrive folded collectively, sort of like a laptop computer,” he mentioned. “You are taking them out of the crate, put them down and so they fold open.”
Briedis additionally mentioned that the corporate is engaged on a line of residential AquaFences, which might price round $20,000. The limitations are designed to guard in a Class 5 hurricane.
“We’re very assured within the system. It was been completely examined,” Briedis advised the outlet.
