At the end of last week, Florida was under threat from Hurricane Matthew, a Category Four Hurricane coming up from the southeast. While the storm was set to have the most impact on the coast, the Orlando area was under a Hurricane Warning. As the city prepared to deal with the possible damage, Orlando City made sure the construction site for the new stadium was protected.
“We have a written Hurricane Preparedness Plan as part of our overall Safety plan for the project that we followed during Hurricane Matthew,” said David Price. Price is the Vice President of Barton Malow, the construction contractor in charge of the stadium. “The execution of this plan involved, in part, securing all loose materials and equipment on site during the days leading up to the actual hurricane event. We also installed additional temporary dewatering pipes in the pitch area, prior to the hurricane event, to help speed up the process of removing excessive rainwater that resulted from Matthew. All contractors did a great job following the Hurricane Preparedness Plan minimizing any impacts to the project.”
As a result of these precautions, the stadium was not damaged during the storm. “We did not incur any physical damage to the construction site,” Price said. “The pitch area and west parking lot area took on a large amount of rainwater that we have been steadily removing over the last few days.”
Price also said that despite the temporary halt on construction Thursday afternoon, there will not be any delays. “No delays from the hurricane will materially impact the completion date,” Price said. “Although we shut the site down early on Thursday, we had personnel back on site Friday with many contractors working through Saturday and Sunday to help recover the lost time.”
The Orlando City stadium is set to open at the start of the 2017 MLS season.
