Densarmor Plus Impact Resistant Home Depot
If your business is attractive for the ultimate aegis adjoin blow damage, a Miami-based aggregation — American Business Continuity Domes — can body you a steel-reinforced accurate arch the aggregation says can survive apprehension of added than 250 afar per hour, as able-bodied as seismic activity, baptize and fires.
Don’t adorned a accurate dome? No worries, there are abounding businesses alms added options that can abate blow damage, cut banking losses and may save money on allowance premiums, such as manufacturers of metal and bolt shutters and panels, impact-resistant windows and doors as able-bodied as able roofs, skylights and doors, abnormally ample doors accessible to assimilation by hurricane-force winds.
South Florida hasn’t accomplished a adverse blow aback Wilma addled in 2005, and abounding businesses and homeowners accept become complacent. This year, the Atlantic blow season, which began June 1, will acceptable be “above normal” and possibly “extremely active,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with a aerial anticipation of 7 to11 Atlantic Basin hurricanes and 3 to 6 above hurricanes.
And if you charge added convincing, Florida ranks as one of the hardest-hit states for hurricanes. Seven of the 10 costliest hurricanes in the country’s history accept pummeled Florida, according to the Tampa-based Allowance Convention for Business & Home Safety, a nonprofit that provides abstracts to allowance companies. Six of the storms extensive the accompaniment occurred in 2004 and 2005, and Wilma abandoned acquired an estimated $11.9 billion in insured losses in Florida in 2012 dollars, the convention reported.
“Businesses can anticipate storm accident and may be able to abate blow allowance premiums by blockage with their allowance companies, accustomed out a wind acknowledgment analysis and authoritative improvements,” said Michael Shaheen, an allowance abettor for Tamarac-based Keyes Advantage Inc., which works with several above allowance firms.
Besides accession premiums, acclaimed allowance companies can advice consumers and baby businesses actuate accident factors afore a storm strikes, analyze improvements that may advance to exceptional credits and aid in selecting the best adapted coverage. “Businesses are generally acquainted that credits are available, but aren’t abiding how to get them,” Shaheen said. Bodies could not alone save on premiums, but additionally abstain blow accident by authoritative improvements, he added.
Here is a attending at a sampling of South Florida companies in the business of blow protection:
Domes: The ultimate protection
“Our domes can bear the arch hurricanes we’ve apparent in Florida,” said Peter Fedele, a accepted architect who is CEO of ABC Domes, which, alternating with its cardinal partners, has congenital domes in Florida, added states and overseas. They can be acclimated as multi-purpose shelters, association centers, sports arenas, churches, schools or for emergency accessories and agent storage, annal and abstracts warehousing and aggregate storage, he said.
ABC Domes was set up in 2006 to accommodate businesses and communities with a new blazon of disaster-proof building, said Fedele, who is additionally admiral of a sister company, Golden Sands Accepted Contractors.
The domes, which accept a annular foundation that is about four anxiety deep, are congenital in a abbreviate aeon of time by inflating a multi-ply carapace in the appearance of a arch that is anchored to the foundation, adhering animate reinforcing confined to the central of the shell, applying polyurethane cream and again spraying on accurate (“shotcrete”) in altered layers. The carapace or airform serves as the anatomy for architecture the arch and as the roof blur already it is completed..
Doors and windows are cut out afore the shotcrete is applied, and the arch has a accurate slab floor.
The domes can accept apparent exteriors if they are to be acclimated to aggregate storage, or windows and doors if they are acclimated as schools/shelters or for added applications. They can be congenital with added than one level.
ABC Domes, which has 30 full-time employees, has congenital seven domes, including four business-continuity barrio in Lakeland, a academy in Hammond, Okla., and a command-center arch in Sealy, Texas. The aggregation is additionally developing several added arch projects.
In Lakeland, 2-20 Annal Management, which provides accumulator of abstracts and abstracts protection, and a Florida coffer use ABC Domes for defended storage.
Aftermost year, ABC Domes formed a cardinal accord with Arch Technology, which has congenital about 500 domes in the U.S. and overseas, and ES2 Engineering System Solutions.
Domes amount several hundred thousand dollars and advancement for the basal shell. Equipping the barrio for gymnasiums, appointment centers and added uses raises the cost.
While a few Florida companies are already application aggregate ABC Domes in Lakeland to assure emergency accessories and abstracts files adjoin disasters, these structures accept not yet been congenital in Miami-Dade or Broward counties. But the aggregation has launched a business affairs for the region.
Shutters
“Hurricane shutters and panels are the best accepted types of storm aegis in South Florida, and action the best aegis adjoin wind and aerial objects,” said David Gonzalez, admiral and buyer of Serious Installations in Pembroke Pines, which sells, installs and casework shutters.
“But because of the economy, a lot of bodies adjournment affairs until a blow is coming, and again it’s too late. And afterwards a storm passes, absorption goes down,” added Gonzalez, who has six employees.
There is a advanced array of aluminum and animate shutters (accordion, roll-down, hinged panels, Bahama) at altered amount ranges, and Gonzalez warns that buyers should accomplish abiding their supplier measures the shutters absolutely to abstain jams/improper fits and installs them accurately and damage-free. (Sometimes factories accomplish shutters that are not square, accept angled sections or scratches, but installers put them in anyway, acquisitive audience will not notice.) “A lot of our assignment is aliment and repairs,” he said.
Blow Fabric
Another South Florida company, Blow Bolt in Delray Beach, makes AstroGuard, a high-strength ballistic nylon with a adhesive blanket that can be acclimated to awning windows and doors on homes and businesses.
“We’ve done absolute lab tests and AstroGuard can bear projectile impacts far greater than the accepted set for Miami-Dade County,” said Yehuda Bar-David, accepted bassinet of Blow Fabric. “The bolt has a access backbone of over 1,500 pounds and can bear wind, baptize and aerial bits above a Category 5 hurricane.”
To assure bottle windows and doors from projectiles that advance adjoin the blow bolt during a storm, the aggregation installs aluminum ribs amid the AstroGuard and the glass.
The key to AstroGuard is the blow acclimated to attach the bolt to buildings. This athletic blow allows for defended adapter beneath accent after bolt tear, and blocks assimilation by wind and rain, the aggregation said.
The translucent, UV-resistant fabric, awash and installed anon by Blow Fabric, is additionally awash by Home Depot and Lowe’s (under the Bertha brand). It has a 10-year assurance and costs about $10 per aboveboard bottom installed by Home Depot, Bar-David said. The aggregation sells the bolt anon for $5.45 per aboveboard foot, including hardware.
AstroGuard is produced, alloyed and coated in Arctic and South Carolina and alien in rolls to Delray Beach for cutting.
Impact-resistant glass
Impact-resistant glass, which can amount two to three times as abundant as shutters, is fabricated by bonding a aggregate of artificial vinyl layers and polyester blur amid two panes of glass, authoritative a distinct area of bottle that can additionally be produced with careful glass.
“Interest in impact-resistance bottle has skyrocketed in the aftermost bristles years,” said Larry Olson, sales administrator at Medley-based Lawson Industries, which makes aluminum windows and doors.
However, alike impact-resistant bottle can be penetrated by accelerated projectiles, so the best (and best expensive) aggregate would be impact-resistant bottle and shutters.
Protecting boats
Most bodies in South Florida’s ample boat-owning association accept alone a few alternatives aback a blow is approaching: anchorage the barge deeply at a dock, accumulate it at home or in a marina. ballast it in a adequate anchorage or acquisition a sheltered, civil anchorage. In Broward County, for example, the abyssal authorities adapt a fleet that takes boats up the New River, abroad from the shore, afore the area’s bridges are bound down.
River Abyssal Supply in Miami does a active business aback storms approach. Baiter owners who accumulate their argosy actuality during a storm banal up on added ropes, chains, anchors, bumpers and added equipment, said Pedro Lank, the calm and all-embracing sales coordinator at River Marine.
“People additionally analysis their hatches to accomplish abiding they’re waterproof and to see if their balloon pumps are working,” he said. Aback bodies accumulate their boats moored, he said, they accept to be abiding not to tie them up too abutting to the dock: “When there’s a aerial course or a storm surge, the boats accept to be able to move with the water.”
Yacht owners with abysmal pockets accept still addition option: they can accelerate their argosy about abroad able-bodied afore the storm division hits South Florida. Yacht owners from Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach use Fort Lauderdale-based Dockwise Yacht Carriage to move their yachts to the Mediterranean and added locations afore the blow division begins, and to bear them back, generally in time for the South Florida baiter shows.
“We accept three float-on/float-off ships that move yachts and we accomplish about eight trips anniversary year aback and alternating to the Mediterranean,” said Catalina Bujor, Dockwise’s accessible relations and business officer. Dockwise’s destinations additionally accommodate credibility further arctic on the East Coast of the United States, the U.S. Pacific Coast, the Caribbean and the South Pacific.
Dockwise’s three ships, alignment from about 456 anxiety to 686 anxiety in length, are advised to acquiesce sea baptize to flood their decks. Yachts and sailboats again captain aboard and are anchored by divers. Afterwards that, the accouter is drained and the carriage ships move on to their abutting destination. Two of Dockwise’s argosy were adapted from ships that agitated oil-drilling rigs and the added was advised abnormally as a yacht transporter.
Loads alter according to the admeasurement of the yachts, but a archetypal burden would accommodate about 45 abate yachts and sailboats or 17 megayachts, additional their tenders.
While some yacht owners may appetite to accomplish the Transatlantic boating on their own, best adopt application a yacht transporter, aback they save abrasion and breach on their crews, boats and engines and don’t accept to anguish about sailing through alarming acclimate on their own.
How abundant does it amount to accord your yacht a ride? The absolute amount depends on the admeasurement of the yacht, the destination, the division and added factors, Bujor said. But for a 100-foot yacht, the 15-day cruise from Fort Lauderdale to Italy would run about $140,000, she estimated.
That’s one way.
