Client:
City of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA

Delivery:
July 2019

Situation:
A jointed polypropylene (PP) pipe DN 400 was never put In order to ensure sustainable drinking water and firefighting capability in the event of a natural disaster, the City of Fort Lauderdale in Florida looked for equipment to quickly repair any breaks originating from their potable water mains or sewer force mains. Therefore in 2018, the City of Fort Lauderdale started a bold and pioneering project. In coordination with the Primus Line engineering team and the engineers from the city, the concept of the rapid response repair kit was realized. – A worldwide unique solution!

Project Description:
People in the southeast of the United States are accustomed to disaster situations, particularly during the hurricane season. In order to keep up the water supply in such cases, Rädlinger primus line GmbH delivered in July 2019 the first two “Primus Line Pipeline Rapid Response Kits” (PRRK) to Fort Lauderdale in Florida. Both 40 feet containers – one for drinking and one for sewage water – hold two and/or three reels with rolled up Primus Liners and customised flange adapters of various sizes, at least two of each kind.

These PRRKs are the fallback strategy for disaster situations such as hurricanes or floods and thus very reassuring for those people in charge of handling huge water main breaks in Fort Lauderdale. With the PRRKs, it is possible for the city’s emergency response crew to bridge pipe breaks at almost inaccessible locations. Customised adapters for different pipe sizes (54″, 48″, 42″, 36″ and 30″*) and flexible 20″ [DN 500] Primus Liners with a single length of 1,400 feet [426 metres] per reel serve as temporary bypass. For example three 20″ Primus Liners may act as substitutes for a broken 48″ [DN 1200] pipe and can be run with a pressure of up to 230 psi [16 bar].
Opening the line at two easily accessible spots instead of trying to repair directly at the location of the incident under extreme time pressure might be the decisive factor in some situations.

To be optimally prepared for such catastrophic cases with the PRRKs, the emergency response crew of Fort Lauderdale trained the use and application of the Primus Liners and its adapters for two days. All items they require are packed in the two containers that can easily be transported to the area concerned. Moreover, the entire kit can be reused for the next emergency situation.