You have probably heard the expression “fighting fire with fire.” In Naples, Florida, the airport authority has plans to protect the facility from flooding using a Tiger Dam flood barrier system, which consists of industrial-grade tubing filled with water, linked together, and anchored in place. In short, fighting water with water.
Naples Airport (KAPF) is located on the west coast of Florida adjacent to Naples Bay. Built during World War II, it served as a training base for Army fighter pilots and then became a civilian facility in 1947. The airport has a field elevation of 8 feet above sea level.
This week airport staff received training on the use of the Tiger Dam system and had a chance to practice setting it up. The training exercise involved filling, stabilizing, anchoring, stacking, draining, and packing the flood barriers. The Tiger Dams are stored on-site in a custom trailer and rapidly deployed within hours based on weather forecasters’ predictions for storm surge…