Tiger dams in Collier County new defense system to stop flooding

Reporter: Valentina LaFranca
Published: Updated:

Collier County is now on board with a new defense system to stop flooding.

Tuesday, Collier County consented to an agreement for tiger dams.

Tiger dams are reusable flood water, inflated flood protection, using water to fight water.

The large orange water-filled tubes can be stacked high to build a temporary dam and can connect together seamlessly to create a barrier that’ll go any length.

They are used to protect buildings from flood waters.

Paul Vicker, president of U.S. Flood Control, said, “We use water to fight water, and it’s an engineered solution.”

Governor Ron Desantis advocated for tiger dams in October, and we spoke to Dan Summers, the director of emergency services in Collier County, who told us the state is definitely following suit.

“Florida Division of Emergency Management, they have acquired some of these units to at least have a couple of these in each county,” Summers said.

Collier County is one of them. On Tuesday, they officially signed an agreement accepting these tiger dam kits from the state, and at no cost.

“It’s certainly less expensive to protect those government resources with the flood barrier than, heaven forbid, go through the damage repair, damage repair cycle,” Summers said.

Compared to sandbags, a tiger dam barrier that is two feet high and over a length of 50 feet can replace the equivalent of 1,500 sandbags, and they can last up to 20 years.

Vicker believes these products should be the new criteria.

“Just like everybody has impact windows, everybody has a new roof, everybody has a higher elevation. I would like to see everybody now getting onto flood protection,” Vicker said.

And the county agrees.

“It’s time to take a look at what we can do for flood mitigation, or storm surge mitigation, in this case, so absolutely it is the next chapter in becoming more disaster resilient,” Summers said.

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