12/11/2024
WT Staff
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December 11, 2024 1211 pm EST
How fast can you set up an effective emergency flood wall? Part Three: Insurance, flood barrier standards, certification and ratings
Looking back on "Climate Battlefield North America", 2024 has proved to be another record setting year. Twenty-four extreme weather attacks on the USA alone made the billion-dollar-loss list in 2024, up from 23 in 2023, the storm activity in each of the last five years is double or triple the 44 year average. Extreme weather has ripped communities apart with unprecedented loss of life and homes, disrupted essential services and supply lines with dreadful environmental effects. With each disaster, more homes and properties are left uninsured or uninsurable. See NOAA's tracking of extreme weather and climate events with losses over $1 billion US since 1980, here.
Standard property insurance coverage does not often cover water damage from outside the building, such as floods caused by weather events. In the USA, the National Flood Insurance Program is available. The program is managed by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and delivered to the public through insurance companies. Flood insurance premiums in locations with multiple emergency declarations have increased in recent years to the point that many property owners cannot afford it and have dropped their coverage. See National Flood Insurance Program, here.
WaterToday is at this moment tracking active flooding in NY, GA and LA with SMS alerts going out to our subscribers. We are plugged in to a complex climate and weather monitoring infrastructure, from which we report to the public. The intelligence hub of the North American weather and climate surveillance and forecasting involves multiple federal and state agencies in the USA. The backbone of the early warning, public notice and emergency response machine is the monitoring hardware: the satellites, real-time streamflow sensors followed by software, the data processing and modeling capability to make sense of incoming raw data from the environment. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) runs the National Weather Service, with an ever-expanding suite of capabilities to see weather coming sooner, to calculate the likely impacts. With this constant stream of information, we have more accurate forecasting with more time to respond.
To sound the alarm of an impending climate attack is not enough. Communities, industry and households cannot be expected to brace for deluge holding their valuables above the high water mark and hoping to survive. Product designers, inventors and engineers have brought forward a variety of flood defense tools to shield the property, preventing much damage and loss. A number of excellent reusable, temporary perimeter flood barriers are available to rapidly encircle critical infrastructure, to contain rising rivers in their channels and to redirect urban overland floodingto prevent flood damage and loss.
Parts One and Two of this series, "How fast can you set up an effective emergency flood wall?" discussed rapid-deploy, reusable defensive and protective measures developed by private industry.
See Part One: INERO hard-shell barrier: built to handle moving water with debris, here.
See Part Two: Water-Gate: Built for urban overland flooding, here.
Part Three examines measures brought forward by public administrators and the insurance industry, to establish standards and certification for flood mitigation products.
Disaster Mitigation: Establishing standards for effective flood response tools
The US Army Corps of Engineers works in partnership with local, state, and federal agencies in planning, construction and maintenance of critical water infrastructure in the USA. USACE also engages in emergency response, personnel deployed to weather disaster zones to coordinate with partner agencies to recover and rebuild essential services.
According to Gene Pawlik from USACE Public Affairs Office, it was in 2004 that US Congress called upon US Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) to engage in the development of robust emergency flood mitigation measures needed to secure public safety and essential services all over the nation. Pawlik quotes from the Congressional order, that USACE would “devise real-world testing procedures for... promising alternative flood-fighting technologies. . . ". Through the General Investigation Research and Development Program, ERDC conducted research and developed a laboratory procedure for the prototype testing of temporary barrier-type flood-fighting structures intended to increase levels of protection during floods.
Pawlik explains further, "In 2012, the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) National Nonstructural Committee teamed with the Association of State Floodplain Managers (ASFPM) and FM Approvals, Inc. (FM Approvals), to develop the National Flood Barrier Testing and Certification Program. This program was rebranded in 2022 to the Flood Mitigation Certification Program (FMCP). The FMCP tests flood mitigation products to the American National Standards Institute (ANSI/FM) 2510 flood abatement test standard. As part of USACE, ERDC’s Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory (CHL) supports FMCP by providing laboratory simulated flood conditions testing services to evaluate the performance of temporary perimeter flood-fighting barriers. FM Approvals supports FMCP by providing certification services for barriers and several other types of flood mitigation products. FM Approvals performs product materials testing and monitors the laboratory simulated flood conditions testing and determines if the product has met the certification requirements. The ASFPM guides any manufacturer and/or vendor seeking full certification of a flood mitigation product through the FMCP, helping ensure the product complies with certification requirements like materials/components testing and product review (conducted by FM Approvals), and full-scale hydraulic testing (conducted by ERDC CHL)."
Limitation of the standard 2510
Only the temporary perimeter barriers were included in the development of the ANSI/FM 2510, according to Pawlik. In order for a temporary barrier to achieve the certification to standard, testing and approval can only come through FM Approvals. Pawlik writes, "For a product to achieve certification, FM Approvals must witness the ERDC CHL testing process."
Note: None of the following parties certifies, endorses, or approves any floodproofing products either within or outside the FMCP: USACE, USACE National Nonstructural Committee, and ERDC CHL. Additional information on the FMCP and the certification requirements may be found, here.
Risk Mitigation Solutions: Insurance for the Insurance Industry
Adoption of risk mitigation solutions is becoming the new ticket to insurability. FM Global is a commercial property insurance company with worldwide recognition for its role stabilizing property values in the face of constant extreme weather events. The corporate tag line, "Others see loss, we see prevention", speaks to action, the insurance company actively developing front line risk management tools. FM Approvals has taken to the role of witness for the testing of novel risk mitigation products. Reusable, temporary barrier products still holding water after the trial period, passing the suite of test protocols receive the certification to standard.
WT spoke with FM Approvals Manager New Business for the Americas, Charles Mahall, a mechancical engineer based in Norwood, Massachussetts.
FM Approvals began testing and certifying flood defense products in 2006. Mahall started out by speaking of the hesitancy by insurance clients to take action on flood risk mititgation for their properties. Mahall notes the great latency between the climate observation and intelligence network sounding the extreme weather alarms to the snail's-pace race to consider flood defense solutions for commercial and industrial property and buildings. Not only in private industry, this remarkable inaction extends broadly to public works, found at all levels of government. Mahall notes the gamut, from municipalities and private property owners, the commercial and industrial operations have been slow to take up flood mitigation tools available in the market. Mahall supposes a strong denial of flood risk. He quips, mitigation investment does not flow while the skies are blue, only when the wastewater treatment plant is inundated and inoperational, with cheques written upon the pain of toilets not flushing. Mahall says most commercial property managers brush off as a remote risk, "the 100-year flood", along with a shot of, "It won't happen to me".
When evaluating risk of flooding for your property, look at the flood inundation maps for your region, know your elevation and drainage conditions. A careful review of property insurance coverage may reveal that overland flooding is excluded. Further, a single flood claim could negate future insurability. According to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, overland flooding, which occurs when bodies of fresh water, such as rivers or dams overflow onto dry land, is typically not covered by a standard policy. Flood damage due to storm surge or tidal waves is also not covered in a standard policy. At this point, our subject becomes all the more compelling.
Temporary Perimeter Flood Barriers - Certification to ANSI/FM 2510 Standard
The testing of novel temporary flood barriers by FM Approvals is ongoing. As new technologies are developed, FM Approvals conducts the standardized suite of testing at the manufacturer's facilities, if appropriate, or at the USACE site in Mississippi. The ANSI/FM 2510 standard for temporary perimeter flood barrier has also been adopted in Europe, testing is done at a number of hydrology labs around the world. Mahall says the testing involves placing the perimeter barrier system under static water pressure at different heights for a length of time, assessing how the barrier holds up. Impact pressure is applied with floating objects striking the barrier, testing for punctures. This part of the assessment is a pass-fail to the standard. Water leaking through and around the barrier is measured. In order to achieve the certification, the leakage must come below the standard. Individual barrier components are tested in the laboratory against environmental factors. The weakest link components in the system, the connectors, latches and seals are tested under conditions of cold, heat and UV radiation over an extended period of time. Mahall added, the intent is for reusable barriers. As barrier sections may be dragged over rough surfaces during set up, the effects of such abrasion are also tested as part of the certification, the condition of the barrier toward reuse is part of the testing protocol.
Perimeter barriers are not necessarily worked to the point of failure. If the barrier is still standing after the time period and the leakage is within the limits, certification is achieved. Higher barriers are not subject to a higher standard on account of the larger destructive force generated behind them. Mahall says the systems are tested to the maximum water depth 4ft, though companies with higher barriers are welcome to have their higher profile products certified. If the four-foot barrier passes scrutiny, the higher profile products can also be certified, though this should not be taken to mean they are capable of holding back more than 4 ft of water. The additional height of the barrier provides "freeboard", an accommodation for waves or wind driving the water over the top of an undersized barrier system.
FM Approvals is involved with temporary perimeter flood barrier standards in development for Canada, more to follow in Part Four.
For information on FM Approvals, Inc. services, click here.
You may also be interested to read a prior WT article on flood mitigation. Calgary, Alberta: in a flash-flood zone with two rivers converging in the downtown core. See how this western Canadian city found its way to flood resilience, here.
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