Precast Concrete Offers Beauty & Brawn to Hurricane Prone Areas

Photo by SSEC/CIMSS, University of Wisconsin–Madison

Photo by AP/Gerald Herbert

White sand beaches, crashing waves, warm breezes...few things evoke the relaxation and calm of living near the beach.  It’s easy to understand why 39% of the US population lives in a county directly on the coastline. According to the National Coastal Population Report recently updated in June 2018, an additional 8-10 million people will flock to the shoreline by 2020.  The steady migration of people toward the water has resulted in densely populated areas at very low elevations. Fast forward to an active hurricane season and you have a cocktail for disaster.

The devastation and aftermath of catastrophic storms plays out year after year and yet there’s no end to people willing to take the risk to live near the beauty of the beach.  So the question becomes, if people are going to continue to inhabit potentially dangerous areas, what can be done to better protect life and property? One part of the solution lies in building structures capable of withstanding natural disasters.  Through years of research and development, precast concrete structures have been shown to stand tough to nature’s fury.

As storms barrel ashore, the design community has begun to turn their attention toward materials that preserve life and property. Precast, specifically PCI certified concrete, is a solution that communities have already adopted for infrastructure projects.  With the resilience and sustainability of precast, future construction and reconstruction is relying more heavily than ever on the beauty and brawn precast concrete offers.