Tampa's flood-proofing faces major test

All eyes on the city's defense systems |

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Florida's west coast is bracing for the arrival of Hurricane Milton, which is due to slam into the state on Wednesday and is already building up a potentially disastrous storm surge. You can follow the path of the storm and up-to-date coverage on Bloomberg.com. Today's newsletter looks at the must-have flood defense systems that are being tested by increasingly powerful storms. You can read the full story here. For unlimited access to climate and energy news, please subscribe.

The most critical infrastructure

By Monique Mulima For the second time in two weeks, Tampa General Hospital is getting ready to keep water at bay. Hurricane Milton is expected to make landfall Wednesday and will test the hospital's flood barrier. It takes dozens of facilities workers to set up the nine-foot barrier made by AquaFence USA Inc. The same system went viral in a post on X as Hurricane Helene bore down on Florida's Gulf Coast. More importantly, it protected the largest hospital in the region from record-setting storm surge, a hospital spokesperson said. Milton promises to be an even greater test of the fence, which is designed to handle storm surges up to 15 feet. Members of the Tampa General Hospital facilities team install AquaFence panels around the lower areas of the hospital campus ahead of Hurricane Helene. The defense system is once again being set up ahead of Hurricane Milton. Photographer: Daniel Wallace A growing number of companies are selling rapidly deployable technologies as corporations, governments and critical infrastructure adapt to a flood-prone world. Other flood-barrier systems on the market deploy water-filled dams, modular barriers made of plastic and foam, and permanent flood gates. AquaFence's modular flood walls are made of two roughly one-inch-thick panels that fold and open up similar to a laptop. The horizontal panel is placed facing outward, which helps stabilize the entire system against floods. "Because of that, you have a relatively lightweight, rapidly deployable system you can set up very quickly," said Thomas Briedis, president of the New Jersey-based AquaFence subsidiary of a company headquartered in Norway. Tampa General is especially vulnerable to flooding, sitting right on the waterfront of one of the most hurricane-vulnerable cities in the US. But rising sea levels are increasing the risk of flooding everywhere along the coast, whether from storm surge or sunny day floods during high tide. And as Helene's destruction in Asheville, North Carolina, makes clear, inland areas are also at risk of inundation from extreme rainfall as the planet warms. "We used to actually have to convince people that you're in a flood zone and this is a risk for you," said Briedis. "But today, that no longer is needed." Read the full story here.

Under strain $3 billion Even before Hurricane Helene, this is how much the US Federal Emergency Management Agency projected its deficit would reach by February.

Preparing for the worst "As bad as Helene was, it will not really come close to the amount of spending you will see with this storm. I would expect much bigger numbers in terms of people impacted and damages."  Craig Fugate FEMA's former administrator Helene killed at least 227 people and caused up to $250 billion in damages. If Milton makes landfall in the Tampa metropolitan area, which has about 3.2 million residents, the impacts could be worse.

Also on our radar

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