Eight Down, Five to Go
Texas Children’s Installs Submarine-Like Flood Doors

To protect against flood damage like that inflicted by Tropical Storm Allison, Texas Children’s Hospital has just completed installation of three new watertight doors. Each door can withstand up to 230,000 pounds of water pressure from floor to ceiling, and offers protection against floodwater from either side. Weighing in at approximately 2,500 pounds each, the doors are made from aerospace aluminum – the same material used to construct the space shuttle. Door frames are made of heavy-duty structural steel.

"They look massive and heavy, but they’re actually very easy to operate," said Rick Morris of Texas Children’s Engineering and Environmental Services Department.

The three new doors join five existing flood doors, bringing the current number of doors in place at Texas Children’s to eight. During the coming year, another five will be added, for a final total of 13. All doors are located below ground level in the tunnel system and in parking garages.

When flood conditions threaten, hospital personnel take action, shutting all watertight doors and locking them securely into place with large metal slide bolts. Then, a rubber bladder similar to a giant inner tube is automatically inflated by twisting a small lever in the center of each door – a step that’s as easy as turning on a bathroom faucet. The inflated bladder seals the opening between the door and the door frame, rendering it watertight. Just in case the first bladder fails to inflate, a second "backup" bladder inflates as well.

"These remind me of submarine doors," said Morris, a Navy veteran stationed on the USS Ohio submarine during the Cold War.

Texas Children’s three new flood doors are the culmination of the second phase of a four-phase flood protection plan that the hospital began drafting in 1999, two years prior to the Allison flood.

• Phase One of the plan was completed last year, when five flood doors designed to protect Texas Children’s West Tower were installed. The Phase One doors are credited with sparing the building from the type of damage experienced by other hospitals during the Allison flood.

"The water level during Allison rose between four and six feet on the other side of this door, but not one drop of water got through," said Morris, gesturing to the underground tunnel door that connects Texas Children’s Abercrombie and West Tower buildings.

• Phase Two of the plan protects the hospital’s new Clinical Care Center. A total of four doors (three of the four were installed just last week) will separate the Clinical Care Center from Texas Children’s West Tower and from Baylor College of Medicine’s Children’s Nutrition Research Center. All three buidlings are connected by a subterranean tunnel system.

• Phase Three calls for two tunnel doors and two garage doors, all watertight, to isolate the Texas Children’s Feigin Center building from the Abercrombie and Children’s Nutrition Research Center buildings. Phase Three is under way, with completion of the first tunnel door slated for next week.

• Phase Four, the final phase to be completed when all flood doors are in place, will add de-watering pumps that, like powerful vacuum cleaners, suck up standing water in buildings and garages. These pumps will have their own backup emergency generators.

When the plan is completed, Texas Children’s four-building campus will be protected by 13 flood doors.

"We’ve got eight down, five to go, to make Texas Children’s a completely safe haven in a storm," Morris said.

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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