Inflatable Plugs For Tunnel Flood Protection

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 This is actually a pretty creditable solution that looks to stand up. Whether the plugs are able to withstand chemical degradation fordecades is quite another matter. On the other hand this is asolution out looking for a problem. For instance, can it be used asa permanent plug in a pipeline that needs to be turned on and offregularly. It could replace heavy flood gate structures.
I particularly think of the huge concrete structure built to protectLondon and Venice and wonder if something like this may be helpful.
On the other hand, a well placed concrete barrier in the right placemay well have soared New York. Perhaps it is time we simply becameparanoid and over design well past the history. Fukushimo wasinexcusable and New York was also avoidable but not that obvious. The fact remains that a tsunami can rip into New York.
A plug is vastly more survivable.
Hurricane Sandy:Inflatable Plugs Might Have Minimized New York City Subway Flooding
The HuffingtonPost  |  By Ryan Grenoble Posted: 11/03/20121:02 am EDT
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/03/hurricane-sandy-subway-plug_n_2067524.html

Employees from MTA NewYork City Transit work to restore the South Ferry subway stationafter it flooded with seawater during superstorm Sandy on Tuesday,Oct. 30, 2012. Sandy, the storm that made landfall Monday, causedmultiple fatalities, halted mass transit and cut power to more than 6million homes and businesses. (AP Photo/ Metropolitan TransportationAuthority)
If an ounce ofprevention is worth a pound of cure, a new technology developed bythe Department of Homeland Security might have been worth its weightin gold during Hurricane Sandy.
That technology is agigantic inflatable plug that might have prevented the massiveflooding of New York City's subway system caused by the storm. Insimulations, the plugs--originally developed to combat terroristattacks and now being evaluated at West Virginia University--haveproven to be effective at limiting flooding in tunnels.
Developed as part ofthe "Resilient Tunnel Project," the plugs are actuallyenormous balloon-like capsules, according to a department pressrelease. When filled with air or 35,000 gallons of water, the plugsmeasure 32 feet by 16 feet. Unfilled, they take up little space andcan be stashed throughout tunnels, waiting to be inflated remotely ata moment's notice.
They're tough,too. The plug's engineering uses the same design andmanufacturing processes as space suits and inflatable space habitats.
"We've provedthat these plugs can hold back water," Dave Cadogan of ILCDover, the plug's manufacturer, told CNN. "I wish we had moved alittle bit faster as a team and had gotten this development done."
Other brains behindthe project told CNN only one current-generation plug has beenmanufactured, and the project is at least two years away fromproducing and selling them to transit agencies.