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Potable Water Pipe Placed Under Lagoon
Laguna Conil, Mexico
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On October 19, 2005, the devastating wind and rain of Hurricane Wilma hurled a wave of destruction upon Quintaña Roo, the Mexican state on the eastern coast of the Yucatán Peninsula. In its path, the storm left $7.5 billion of damage, drastically affecting the economies of the highly popular Quintaña Roo tourist cities Cancún and Cozumel. It was the costliest Atlantic hurricane in Mexico and the second costliest natural disaster in Mexican history, following only Hurricane Pauline in 1997. Among the extensive infrastructure casualties was a water transfer pipeline that ran underwater along the bottom of Laguna Conil, a lagoon off the north coast of Quintaña Roo between the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. The pipeline connected Isla Holbox, a small island off the northeastern tip of the Yucatán to the Quintaña Roo mainland. The storm dislodged sections of the submerged high-density polyethylene (HDPE) pipeline, which floated to the surface and took a beating in the Gulf. This also cut off the 26-mile long island from the vital potable water supply of Chiquilá, Quintaña Roo. To fix this problem, Quintaña Roo’s Comisión de Aqua Potable (CAPA), or Commission of Potable Water, called on engineer Francisco Vicke Andrews, of Chihuahua City, Chihuahua, who had done previous work for CAPA. Vicke Andrews designed and installed a similar potable water transfer line five years earlier, leading from Punta Sam, Puerto Juarez, to Isla Mujeres, another small island off the northeast Yucatán coast in the Caribbean Sea. This PVC pipeline, however, was still in place and operating after the big storm. Government Engineering, May 2007.
Municipal
Pipe size used: 10"
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