An Overview Of Our Solution
Around the world the number of catastrophic storms have been on the rise. Record amounts of rainfall, flooding, storm surge from Hurricanes, Nor'esters, massive amounts of melting snow and mudslides from increasing wildfires continue to devastate our communities. Many of these disaster's come with very little warning or time to prepare for their onslaught.
Many of the catastrophes may be prevented with the use of a rapidly deployable cellular barrier system, like TrapBags, to prevent the large and small invasion's of the flooding and mudslides. Sandbags become an insurmountable, unaccomplished, daunting task. They are extremely labor intensive and are not an adequate solution for most of these circumstances.
Trapbag is an easily deployable cellular barrier system, using 40% less sand than ordinary sand bags to accomplish the same protection.They use very little manpower (1%) of standard sandbags and can be deployed at an extremely rapid rate, implemented in a very short period of time. All of these components are necessary when faced with an impending catastrophic event. 1% of the labor and 100 times faster deployment than standard sandbags.
- Population Impacted: 150 Million in USA alone add 2 billion world wide
- Continent: North America
Address
11600 Court of Palms Unit 402
Fort Myers, FL 33908
United States
Hazard
Identify the likelihood and frequency of this hazard
Explain how vulnerable the community is to this hazard
List the potential affects of this hazard
Identify how sensitive the community is to these affects
Preparedness Goal
Implementation Actions
To reduce the risk we continue to educate Governmental Agency's and Public Utilities about a new tool (TrapBag) for pre-disaster mitigation. Presently, our Governmental Agency's, Public Utilities, Public Transportation Services and NGO's are reactive and not proactive. They tend to forget what happened just 2 years ago. Now with the disasters happening more frequently and maybe with better education, a change will come about.
Many politicians don't want to fire the gun too early, but then it becomes too late, as in New York City before SS Sandy. We contacted the City EO Department and the Mayor's office, with the offer and solution to help. They told us they would call if they needed us. if they had only deployed 1000 feet of TrapBags around the entrances of the Battery Tunnel, for approximately $50,000 in costs, they would have saved $1 billon in repairs and so on, and so on. This could have happened all over the city as well as other cities throughout the world.
I can assure you NYC has learned their lesson. Since being presented with and educated on the many application's of TrapBags, they have deployed neary 40 miles of TrapBags. They have used them as the core of new Sand Dunes in many location's, as well as surrounding power stations and rail yards. They also maintain an inventory of TrapBags for rapid deployment.
Describe Your Solution
Educate and implement a pre-disaster mitigation plan for Governmental Agencies, Public Utility Departments, transportation providers and NGO's, with these new tools, just as NYC has done. Provide availability and installation instruction's for the new tool,TrapBag Cellular Barriers.
The most cost effective and widely used, rapidly deployable flood, erosion control and mudslide redirection cellular barrier available today.
Economic?
TrapBag has been installed on the top of a levee, which abuts the Mississippi River. The structure held back the rising waters from overtopping the levee and spreading the Mississippi River throughout the city of Baton Rouge, La..
When utilizing TrapBag as a core of the sand dunes in New York City they are presently protecting themselves from storm surge flowing into the communities, as it did in SS Sandy.
Utility stations, surrounded by the TrapBag barrier, have been spared being flooded and shutting down thousands of homes and businesses. Miles of highways have benefited by having these barriers installed to assist in keeping the flooding from crossing over.
TrapBag Cellular Barriers have been deployed to save Fargo Nd., Bismark. Nd., Omaha Ne., Interstate 29 Iowa, Baton Rouge La., the water supply for the US Air Force Academy and the city of Colorado Springs, as well as schools and neighborhoods in Colorado Springs, Co.. After the Waldo Canon fires TrapBags were installed to prevent further encroachment from the mudslides.
Many communities in New York utilized TrapBags for storm surge protection during the last Nor'easter, "Juno". TrapBags have protected numerous cities, a list can be provided.
Environmental?
Environmentally safe, Trapbag has been approved to be used on beaches in various areas of New York, Long Island and the east coast of Florida. The structure can be covered with sand and even allows for planting vegetation. Flooding can bring many hazards to the environment, just as bad and sometimes worse than the flooding itself. Debris, mold, harmful materials can all be distributed throughout communities, when the flood waters bring them in. Trapbags can play an integral part in mitigating these problems.
What were the negative or unintended impacts (if any) associated with implementing this solution?
None at this time.
Return on Investment: How much did it cost to implement these activities? How do your results above compare to this investment?
There is a short answer to this. Strategically, pre-disaster placed barriers result in major reduction in post disaster reconstruction. One example is the Battery Tunnel in NYC. If TrapBags had been deployed, at a cost of less than $50,000 worth of TrapBags, it would have saved nearly $1 billion in reconstruction costs. The math is simple. For example, you can keep a highway open for commerce, into a city like Omaha, for one month. During a major flood of the Missouri River the deployment cost would be approximately $2M. The business savings would be approximately $750,000,000. Depending on the particular city it could be in the Billions.
The medical benefits to the community are tremendous by not having the mental stress from pre-disaster preparation and having the feeling of security. Also, there is the recovery shock, depression and injuries resulting from all the recovery work alone.
I am not sure how one would measure these savings.
What are the main factors needed to successfully replicate this solution
Education of politician's, Municipal employee's, Public Utilities and NGO's.