43 AirportImprovement.com November | December 2026 ENVIRONMENTAL TPA purchased a deployable barrier system from AquaFence last year. TPA’s Clima Armour FloodWall is designed to protect its electrical vaults during sustained winds up to 140 mph, the kind Category 4 hurricanes include. In contrast, Milton pounded Tampa with sustained winds of 58 mph and gusts reaching 93 mph. The $1.9 million project was paid for with airport capital funds, including a $551,117 Airport Improvement Program grant from the FAA. Increasing risks associated with extreme weather have been underscored in recent years by storm damage at all three of TPA’s sister general aviation facilities, also owned and managed by the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority. Tampa Executive Airport (VDF), Plant City Airport (PCM) and Peter O. Knight Airport (TPF) each sustained varied combinations of flood, hangar, power and other damage from Milton. The brunt was especially hard felt at South Tampa’s TPF, which sits directly on the waterfront and had also been hit the previous month by Hurricane Helene. One More Tool for the Box Even though TPA was spared significant damage from Milton, officials felt more had to be done to protect the airport’s infrastructure. And it needed to happen straightaway. Leaders felt compelled to augment what had already been accomplished over the last decade. In 2014, the airport assessed its weather- vulnerable infrastructure and established new structural hardening standards. That effort initiated a series of runway and ramp rehabilitation projects, and also prompted construction of a solar array to reduce dependence on the local electrical grid during power outages from storms. In 2019, a Climate Change Resilience Assessment and Modelling study by RS&H created a flood map based on roughly 1,000 possible weather scenarios through the years 2050 and 2100. Influenced by those initiatives and in the course of a Master Plan Update, TPA constructed a new office building that includes the airport administration hub called SkyCenter One, a nine-story facility separate from the Main Terminal that is hardened to withstand storms and flooding. Additionally, the airport developed a Sustainable Management Plan and updated its Master Plan accordingly in June 2024. Seeley explains that the previous studies and weather modelling helped TPA assess its critical infrastructure based on operational value and risk of damage in order to set priorities for bolstering various pieces against potential storm damage in the future. Using those metrics, the airfield electrical vaults were ranked as the “No. 1 asset.” “We really needed to do some sort of flood barriers to protect the vaults from flooding due to a hurricane,” Seeley emphasizes. Smitha Radhakrishnan, TPA’s chief development officer, puts the overall effort at TPA in context: “As a major regional economic driver and transportation hub, we must continually evaluate how our ability to serve the community could be disrupted and how best to prepare for those risks. That means considering a wide range of scenarios and vulnerabilities across our facilities and operations. “While AquaFence is a direct response to the threat of storm surge, our overall approach to resiliency goes beyond any single solution. It is embedded in how we plan, design and operate the airport, with careful attention to how we can anticipate, respond to, and recover from potential disruptions. This approach is part of TPA’s culture and informs everything we do.” More specifically, when storm surges occur, “it’s imperative that we be able to operate the way an airport should operate, and that includes having a functional airfield lighting system,” she says. Many Strategies Airports around the U.S. have implemented a diverse range of responses to increasing storm risks. They include permanent perimeter floodwalls, as at LaGuardia Airport; floodgates and a system of earthen levees at San Francisco International; and SMITHA RADHAKRISHNAN PHOTO: TPA
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