Last year’s hurricanes reminded us how much damage these fairly regular occurrences can wreak.
In August, the Southwest suffered about $125 billion in damage from Hurricane Harvey. No area was hit harder than the Houston Metro. Yet a relatively new waterpark — Typhoon Texas, in the Houston suburb of Katy — went relatively unscathed. “For the newer [structures] that we did, the code … in Katy was much more stringent than previous codes,” says the property’s engineer, Terry Brannon, president of the C.T. Brannon Corporation in Tyler, Texas. “So all our slide towers, buildings and roofs on our buildings — even the mechanical-room roofs — had to withstand these high winds.”
Such protection should be applied to any structure, no matter how seemingly minor or DIY-friendly. For instance, some owners may want to handle a deck or even a restroom in-house. “I see a lot of operators who … decide they need a restroom and just throw something up — they’ll build it out of wood and call it good,” Brannon says. “But the force on the side of the building can be quite high in a hurricane — 30 to 40 pounds per square foot. That’ll blow most buildings.”
Consult an engineer for anything, even the smallest footbridge, he says. As for waterslides and other manufactured features, the vendors generally design these to withstand certain wind speeds, which may be dictated by local code.
Before areas such as Katy updated codes, properties didn’t always fare so well. Jeff Nodorft, an engineer and principal with St. Louis-based Counsilman-Hunsaker, remembers surveying a Mississippi waterpark post-Katrina. “A 26-foot surge came in, and you could see where… it ripped things out because of the force.”
One of the most important lessons learned there applies not only to waterparks, but any aquatics facility: Locate pumps and especially electrical features to minimize flood damage. Items such as transformers, starters and panels should stand higher than storm surge levels, Nordorft says.
Motors often can be recovered from submersion by disassembling, drying and reassembling them, Brannon says. But designers and contractors should choose pumps and motors that can better withstand the conditions. At Typhoon Texas, Brannon specified totally enclosed, fan-cooled motors (TEFC). These are fairly watertight, especially compared to the more common open-drip proof models (ODP). All pumps were vertically mounted, which only added nominal costs. “They were like upside-down glasses or cups,” Brannon says. “So they trapped air inside them, which meant that even when they flooded, water didn’t get to the motor windings, in most cases.”