Storm hardening is the process whereby

construction Construction are processes involved in delivering buildings, infrastructure, industrial facilities, and associated activities through to the end of their life. It typically starts with planning, financing, and design that continues until the a ...

is used to create new

infrastructure Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and pri ...

retrofit Retrofitting is the addition of new technology or features to older systems. Retrofits can happen for a number of reasons, for example with big capital expenditures like naval vessels, military equipment or manufacturing plants, businesses or go ...

existing infrastructure such that it is more capable of withstanding

extreme weather Extreme weather includes unexpected, unusual, severe weather, severe, or unseasonal weather; weather at the extremes of the historical distribution—the range that has been seen in the past. Extreme events are based on a location's recorded weat ...

events. It "involves physically changing infrastructure to make it less susceptible to damage from extreme

wind Wind is the natural movement of atmosphere of Earth, air or other gases relative to a planetary surface, planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heatin ...

flooding A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are of significant concern in agriculture, civi ...

, or flying debris. Hardening measures include adopting new technology, installing new equipment, constructing protective barriers, or changing communications/ IT at the facility. "Hardening usually requires significant investment by the energy company. Some projects take years to complete; for example, large earth-moving equipment may be brought in to build a new

levee A levee ( or ), dike (American English), dyke (British English; see American and British English spelling differences#Miscellaneous spelling differences, spelling differences), embankment, floodbank, or stop bank is an elevated ridge, natural ...

. Sometimes the sheer magnitude of assets involved (e.g., thousands of wooden distribution poles) requires years of concerted effort to upgrade."

References

{{Reflist Building engineering Disaster preparedness Climate change programs