>> PLANNING NEVER CEASES:
Hurricane Response Prep Takes Years-Long Focus Enhanced scrutiny is critical to ensure problem points are correctly identified, Anderson said. “One thing I enjoy about the job is I’ve done many, many roof inspections in my life, but every time I see something new,” Anderson said. “That could be due to the nature of construction, it could be something about the way the building was maintained or its ultimate use, or it also could be wind damage, which can do some crazy stuff you wouldn’t think was possible.” Thornton Tomasetti engineers prepare a findings report after storm deployments, which is shared across the firm’s locations. These reports not only inform seasoned engineers but also train young engineers in the expected work product and logic behind evaluations. Anderson noted several lessons learned from last year’s active storm season. “One thing I noticed was a lot of the buildings that had been properly repaired following Hurricane Ian did very well during Hurricane Milton,” Anderson said. “The building codes we have in Florida are very resilient and work assuming the construction is done appropriately and per code.
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In conjunction with partners, WSP assisted the State of Florida in its Emergency Transportation Support Task and responded to more than 1,000 missions for Hurricanes Debby, Helene and Milton.
The building codes we have in Florida are very resilient and work assuming the construction is done appropriately and per code. CHASE ANDERSON,
Associate Principal, Thornton Tomasetti 18 | ENGINEERING FLORIDA
“The flip side is that a handful of buildings I inspected that had brand new roofs put on in recent years, but they still failed massively and had a lot of damage to the interior as a result. When I looked at them closer, I realized the work done by those contractors was subpar.”
MAKING A DIFFERENCE No matter who the client is – an insurance company, a property owner, a government entity or otherwise – an engineer’s response also touches an engineer’s call to service. “It’s a profession that the public respects – most people tend to listen to you and value you,” Anderson said. “There’s a flip side of the coin. Society puts a lot of trust in us as engineers, so we need to deliver on that and do our best so the Florida we live in is a happy, healthy, safe place to live for everyone.” That service piece is particularly true for Torres Diaz. Before Hurricane Maria in 2017, he lived with his family in Puerto Rico where he worked on infrastructure for a number of years, but the cyclone drove him to a more pinpointed career trajectory.
