Building a Better Florida Future While Addressing Recurring Flooding in Putnam County

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At over 300 miles, the St. John’s River is the longest in Florida, providing a vital water-based highway for commerce, recreation, and, when the weather turns difficult, floodwaters in Florida. However, St. John’s and surrounding areas need a helping hand due to persistent and stronger storms. This past fall, Hurricane Milton tested the river’s capacity to handle excessive amounts of rainfall, and it’s likely to get worse, producing more rainfall and excess water runoff that has nowhere to go. Depending on the severity of the weather event, it can take weeks or even months for water levels to return to normal.

Thankfully, Allen & Company is working to mitigate this ongoing issue. We are contributing our knowledge and expertise to the Northern Putnam Drainage Project, an infrastructure improvement that aims to address recurring flooding by enhancing stormwater management. As part of this work, we are working to mitigate current and future flooding while simultaneously improving roadway safety for residents and commuters. This must be a long-term, community-oriented solution that benefits people while also supporting sustainable growth in Florida, the fastest-growing state for new populations. And the more people who choose to live here, the more we must continue making needed improvements.

Our scope of work for the project includes drainage and roadway improvements along Palmetto Bluff Road and Millican Road. To accomplish this, our teams are applying some of the most important technologies to ensure that the improvements will stand the test of time. In support of this effort, we crafted a topographic map of the job site to glean critical elevation data to enable adequate water flow and the most efficient drainage. We also conducted site boundary surveys to reduce disputes over property borders while complying with land-use regulations. And to avoid bumping into crucial underground utilities as well as other potential obstacles, our team engaged in subsurface mapping—a specialty at our firm—to prevent damage and avoid expensive and time-consuming construction delays later.

The pinpoint accuracy of our mapping and surveying techniques empowers Putnam County to meet the unique demands of this project. Combining enhanced infrastructure with reduced flooding risks helps make the quality of life for Floridians better—and safer.

We are excited and honored to be a part of crucial infrastructure improvements where our team will utilize our skills in hydrographic mapping, surveying, exploration, and subsurface utility exploration to prepare the St. John’s River for greater flood potential. Thanks to our precision-based mapping at the Northern Putnam Drainage Project, the county will be able to avoid flooding years or even decades in the future.

Innovation for Long-Term Planning — Using a Mapped Layout of Underground Utilities to Cut Risks and Save Costs

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The underworld is real—and Allen & Company’s underground mapping professionals can uncover it

On any given day, people walk over a bustling array of underground utilities without even realizing it. By one estimate, there are over 20 million miles of below-grade wires, cables, and pipelines beneath the ground we walk, run, bike, drive, and commute on. Engineering professionals spent time and effort installing those underground utilities over many years. And even after installation—sometimes years or even decades later—work crews often need to dig down again for necessary repairs.

Understanding the layout of below-ground utilities is crucial before any of the digging commences to ensure the safety of construction workers and their equipment. Thanks to a competency known as Subsurface Utility Exploration (SUE), Allen & Company’s professional surveyors and mappers can get a peek into the intricate maze of cables and pipes hidden below the surface. SUE technology allows for a deeper and more detailed look at what’s underground, helping companies dig smarter and faster.

The reality is that America’s infrastructure is aging—and many areas require repairs to remain operational and relevant. The United States is a large, geologically diverse country, with well over a century’s worth of telephone, internet, sewer, and other utilities installed underneath the ground. The problems associated with this are legion, not the least being the possibility of mysterious fires underneath streets, as recently happened in Baltimore.

While it may be impossible to get out ahead of every potential problem affecting underground utilities (remember there are 20 million miles’ worth of underground assets), employing SUE technology to obtain a fuller understanding of the subsurface environment helps engineers and other problem solvers know where the issues might be, and then formulate a plan to fix them.

In addition to correcting subsurface utility installations of the past, SUE technology also allows us to look at solutions for crafting the infrastructure of the decades still to come. This year’s hurricanes devastated aboveground power lines, requiring a thorough revision of how the community is supplied with electricity. In Tampa, those familiar wooden poles are being taken down and power lines are being relocated underground. This is one small way in which SUE professionals are looking ahead at the longer term for an energy future, and an infrastructure plan, in which utilities must be relocated below the surface to withstand stronger and more frequent weather-related events.

In addition to locating and potentially replacing outdated utility lines, the technology can uncover storage tanks, contaminants, and septic tanks, which may need updating and/or remediation—without digging. We’ve shared data before from the Department of Transportation that every $1 spent on SUE translates to $4.62 in total savings. Furthermore, the agency reports that SUE also reduces construction-related costs. Accordingly, the long-term solutions to the infrastructure issues of the present won’t necessarily bring along a hefty price tag. Think of it as investing in our collective future.

“The pipelines and other utilities that exist under the ground represent a patchwork of work undertaken by different companies, agencies, and workers for well over a hundred years—and much of it is in drastic need of modernization,” said Kyle Binni, Allen & Company’s Director of Sales and Business Development. “By using SUE, we are able to locate all of these underground installations, and provide the market with valuable data, empowering better decision making by civic authorities exploring long-term, cost-efficient plans for envisioning an entirely new infrastructure that will stand for generations to come.”

Our Allen & Company team has spent years refining the processes of applying SUE tech to see beneath the ground and create the most up-to-date maps of below-grade utilities. The technology also has other applications for highways, railroads, military, and other types of construction as well.

Get in touch to learn how Allen & Company’s underground mapping professionals continue to innovate on projects requiring economically efficient solutions to the ongoing puzzles located beneath our feet. We will continue to safely apply the latest SUE technologies to ensure your development and construction projects get off the ground successfully.