In the past few years, New York City has seen an unprecedented of weather disasters, including Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Irene. Contractors and developers are now looking for new methods to protect buildings from harm in the event of future storms. New York City based Plaza Construction has designed a structure to accomplish this task.
The firm was was contracted by New Water Street Corporation to help develop a flood protection system for 55 Water Street, a 53 story, 3.5 million square foot building located near the Hudson and East rivers in lower Manhattan. The job was to “develop a flood protection system to guard against future storm surges that continue to be a major threat to the infrastructure of New York City and its neighboring communities,” says Richard Wood, president and CEO of Plaza Construction. “Together with our partners, we created a simple, fast and easy solution in a modular set up, take down and store removable barrier flood protection system that is tested to withstand an 8-foot flood line, higher than 7-1/2 foot flood line recommended by FEMA.”