Flood engineering · 2022 to 2024
The Raise
In May 2022 we raised our design flood elevation from 15.0 feet to 18.5 feet. SEC1 had been built to the old figure. Over the next three years we spent $41.6 million making it meet the new one.
01 Why
Why we moved the line
Our original design flood elevation came from the projections available in 2014: about two feet of sea-level rise by 2070, on a moderate scenario. By 2021 the projections for the end of the century had grown, and our customers’ contracts had too. We were signing ten-year terms in a building designed for conditions forty years away. We decided that our design should cover the lifetime of the building, not the term of the lease, and that it should take the high scenario rather than the middle one.
The new figure, 18.5 feet, is 1.7 feet above the floor of SEC1’s original halls. A building we had described as above the flood line was, by our own new standard, slightly below it.
02 What we did
What we did about it
| Project | Work | Years | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electrical gallery, SEC1 | Move switchgear and UPS from the deck (16.8 ft) to a new gallery at 21.0 ft, live, one block at a time | 2022–2023 | $9.8M |
| Generator plinths, SEC1 | Raise the plinths under all ten sets from 15.5 ft to 20.0 ft, one set at a time | 2023–2024 | $4.1M |
| Perimeter barrier, SEC1 | 1,940 ft of wall and berm to 19.5 ft with seven deployable gates | 2023–2024 | $11.3M |
| Hall 4 structure, SEC1 | The structural share of the new level that became the Dry Floor (fit-out paid separately) | 2022–2023 | $12.6M |
| Dock barrier, NWK1 | Deployable barrier to 19.5 ft across the three dock positions | 2023 | $0.9M |
| Conduit sealing, both | Seal every conduit entering either building to 19.5 ft | 2022 | $1.4M |
| Storm pumps, SEC1 | Two more pumps, on generator power, inside the barrier | 2024 | $1.5M |
| Total | $41.6M |
The electrical gallery was the hardest part. Every circuit in Halls 1 to 3 had to move from the old switchgear on the deck to new switchgear four feet higher without a customer losing power. It took fourteen months and sixty-one overnight transfers, each one announced to the customers on that circuit a week ahead. None dropped a load.
03 What we did not do
What we did not do
We did not raise the floor of Halls 1 to 3. Lifting a live data hall by two feet is possible on paper and nowhere else. The halls stay at 16.8 feet, behind a barrier to 19.5 feet, and we say so on every page that mentions them. Customers who want their equipment above the design flood elevation without relying on a barrier can take space on the Dry Floor.
We did not move the SEC1 fuel tanks, which are below grade, sealed and anchored. Their fill and vent points are on the generator plinths.
And we did not make the ground floor dry. It holds the car park, the loading area and stores, and it is built to flood: no electrics below 20 feet except the pumps, drains that close, and nothing a customer would miss.