As Florida Grows, Engineers Plan for the Future

By Kelly Cranford P.E., Env. SP FES Past President and Scott Martin P.E., LEED AP, DBIA ACEC Florida Past President

If you have been in Florida for any amount of time, you have witnessed the state’s growth first hand.

You see new neighborhoods, commercial developments, schools, hospitals, parks, and research and industrial centers. You drive on new roads and bridges and through infrastructure construction. You read about new water and wastewater projects across the state and the expansion of our airports and seaports to welcome record numbers of new residents, visitors and shipments. You also read about the environmental restoration and enhancement projects designed to offset the negative impacts of our increased population.

Of course, our engineering community in the Sunshine State isn’t just seeing these changes and new projects being put in place to accommodate our rapidly growing population. We are the ones responsible for planning and designing for our future, ensuring the infrastructure is in place before it is needed, and ensuring the natural treasures of the state are not sacrificed along the way.

That’s not hyperbole. Florida faces a plethora of pressures from the environment, Mother Nature and our own human footprint. It’s up to us as engineers to provide solutions to keep these pressures from becoming untenable problems.

We saw this last month as Hurricane Idalia moved through the Big Bend. By the next day, all bridges and more than 6,500 miles of highway in areas affected by the hurricane had been cleared by the Florida Dept. of Transportation (FDOT). While many Gulf Coast counties dealt with flooding, reports are that the good news is the storm’s toll on infrastructure and buildings was relatively insignificant.

Nevertheless, hurricanes will keep knocking on our door. Concerns about storms, flooding and preserving our natural resources and coastal communities will persist.

Fortunately, as you’ll read in this issue of Engineering Florida, members of the Florida Engineering Society (FES), the American Council of Engineering Companies of Florida (ACEC Florida), the American Society of Civil Engineers Florida Section (FLASCE), the American Society of Highway Engineers (ASHE), the Florida Structural Engineers Association (FSEA), and the Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) Florida Chapters are up to these challenges.

Professional engineers are designing Florida’s future. From alternative water sources to state-of-the-art multimodal networks, engineers of every specialty are finding and creating cutting-edge solutions to better our quality of life while protecting the natural resources that make Florida so unique.

As you read these stories about growth in our state and our profession, let us be thankful for the thoughtful planning generations of engineers before us took part in. And as we look to the future of Florida, we know that it’s the engineers of today and the innovative and careful design we do that will keep us on track for a fruitful tomorrow. It is up to professional engineers to come together, stay together and work together for success!

Our livelihood and home depend on us.