H+H Metro. Hosp.

After Hurricane Sandy, NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation (“HHC”), a public benefit corporation, restored damage to Metropolitan Hospital Center (MHC). MHC restored the damaged areas and worked with FEMA to develop plans to prevent damage to MHC from future storms and flooding. Vulnerable areas due to storms included the 99th St. loading dock, the main building entrances on the first floor, electrical and utility manholes, a depressed walkway with multiple openings, and the tunnel from the chiller/boiler room to fuel tanks. MHC’s plan involved the construction of a new flood mitigation system to improve the City’s comprehensive five-borough plan to protect the hospital from future flood-related events. The flood mitigation system was envisioned to consist of boundary flood protection with increased stormwater capacity.

Perimeter flood protection, in combination with increased stormwater pumping capacity, provided greater resiliency to the hospital and was able to withstand FEMA 500-year storm events. Improvements to support the flood mitigation systems promoted safe public access, maintenance, and emergency vehicle access. New flood protection measures included permanent flood walls, deployable vehicular and pedestrian gates, associated mitigation pumps, plumbing, drainage systems, loading dock protection, basement wall hardening, sanitary and stormwater management, sealing of tunnels and manholes, provision of egress ladders in case of evacuation, and protection of splitter connections. SJH was responsible for design and details for concrete flood walls, retrofit of existing structures, concrete foundations, miscellaneous designs, and detailing.