HESCO® barriers are used to taking an onslaught from flash floods; storms surge; hurricane winds and ice-filled waters; however the newest addition to the HESCO environmental portfolio faced a new challenge this week at Tees Barrage, UK.
A 300 metre, international white-water rafting course, originally built to train 2012 Olympians, re-configured with eddies and slaloms and temporarily, the new HESCO flood barrier, JACKBOX™.
Hesco’s research and development team behind JACKBOX, a non-metallic self-supporting flood barrier, ventured to the North of England for a second round of testing, pushing both JACKBOX and resources to their limits.
With the ability to simulate and control the force of flash flooding, the facilities at the Teesside sports venue were closed off from public use as Hesco deployed barriers to build dams and obstacles to test the product against the extreme.
Mike Pickup, head of product management and technical assurance, said; "At Hesco we test every product to the absolute limit because we know it is our product that will stand between you and the threat, so it needs to be robust and provide a high level of confidence to the end user."
JACKBOX is a lightweight and durable temporary flood barrier, which recently passed the US Army Corps of Engineers laboratory testing at the ERDC in Mississippi, USA.
Each unit is self-supporting and can be carried by only two people, positioned and filled with ease and is engineered to be separated as individual cells, allowing the fill material to be recovered with ease without any loss of fill material.
In addition an 80ft barrier made from JACKBOX can be cleared away by one person and manual-handling equipment in less than 35 minutes.