Early in the morning of October 24, 2005, Hurricane Wilma ripped into South Florida. The Category 3 storm packed winds exceeding 135 mph by the time it reached the inland city of Pembroke Pines, where rapid recovery is the mind set.
"I met with our public works director within hours of the storm to talk about our priorities, and I said we need to get Musco in here. I called Musco Representative Tim Imhoff and within two days we had a plan of action." said Pembroke Pines Parks and Recreation Director, Chuck Vones.
The Musco team of Imhoff, Lewis Gilbert, and Karl Severance acted quickly to develop a plan that started with FEMA's initial damage assessment. A full inspection from atop the poles told the whole story. Wilma had mangled mounting brackets and weakened knuckles. Crossarms were bent and twisted. Most components not pummeled by the winds suffered water damage.
Flamingo Park Baseball Complex was one of the facilities devastated by Hurricane Wilma’s force, but is now lighted even better with Musco’s Green Generation Lighting®.
Project Summary
PROJECT:
Pembroke Pines Park and Recreation Department Relight
Pembroke Pines, Florida
25-YEAR PROJECTED
LIFE-CYCLE SAVINGS:
$15,923,000
ADDITIONAL BENEFITS:
Constant 25™ product assurance and warranty program provides constant light on all fields, as
well as group lamp replacements at end of useful life, saving staff time and expense
Automated scheduling and on/off control through Control-Link® provides monitoring and better scheduling control for the city’s
112 recreational facilities
LIGHTING SYSTEM:
Light-Structure Green™
14 poles · 33 luminaires
City Commits to Recreation Lighting
Just a few months before the storm, Vones asked Musco to perform a lighting audit to inspect energy inefficiencies and light levels that hovered between 25 to 30 footcandles. “City officials knew their lighting levels were below IESNA and league standards, and they anticipated relamp costs even before the storm,” Gilbert said. Group relamps estimated at $274,000 would be needed to correct the problems, but it would take several years to complete relamping throughout the city.
Unfortunately, Wilma shot that investment up exponentially. According to Vones, Pembroke Pines’ 200 acres of sports surfaces at its 16 complexes sustained $7.3 million in storm damage.
Ten months earlier, Green Generation Lighting® systems were installed at eight different locations from Florida’s east to west coasts directly in the eye of Wilma. The systems were located in some of the hardest hit areas including Broward County Public Schools, North Collier Regional Park, the Miami Dolphins’ football training facilities in Davie, and the community of Palm Beach Gardens. Not one of the more than 1,200 Light-Structure Green™ fixtures standing in Wilma’s path sustained damage.
Pembroke Pines responded immediately with a commitment of resources to rebuild and repair the facilities, and began preparing documentation for FEMA assistance. Pouring over facility and product data and energy consumption projections, the planning team prepared a comprehensive proposal to install Musco’s Light-Structure Green and SportsCluster Green™ systems for a city-wide recovery.
“We went to our commission to get permission to repair these lights and they recognized how important outdoor recreation was to the youth of our community. They approved our request immediately." –Chuck Vones
Pembroke Pines Parks and
Recreation Director
Lighting A Population Explosion
Located west of Ft. Lauderdale, Pembroke Pines is the second largest city in Broward County. City leaders say the municipality’s expansion was a major result of relocations from 1992’s Hurricane Andrew. Since then, the nearly 70,000 population has more than doubled to 150,000, making it one of the nation’s fastest-growing cities.
As a result, parks and recreation programs have mushroomed to meet demand, but it’s been tough on the budget in an era of increasing global utility consciousness. According to Musco’s Lewis Gilbert, the former lighting systems serving 44 baseball/softball fields, 14 soccer/football fields, 26 tennis courts, 10 roller hockey rinks, and 18 basketball/racquetball/volleyball courts, required 2,750 fixtures using 4,455 kW of energy. Due to photometric advancements, replacing the systems with Green Generation Lighting cut the fixture count to 1,809 and dramatically reduces the energy usage to 2,829 kW.
Also, the improved reflector technology represented sound long-term economics with significant energy and maintenance reductions resulting in an energy savings of approximately $8.3 million as well as a maintenance savings of nearly $7.6 million for a total life-cycle cost savings of nearly $16 million during the 25year product assurance and warranty
program coverage.
As well as guaranteeing monitoring, maintenance, and remote on/off control services, the Constant 25™ warranty provides constant light levels and group lamp replacements at the end of rated lamp life.
“We went to our commission to get permission to repair these lights and they recognized how important outdoor recreation was to the youth of our community. They approved our request immediately,” Vones said.
Added Musco’s Imhoff, “Once they saw the value of the warranty, the energy savings, the spill and glare control, constant light, and safety involved with monitoring their fields on a regular basis, the city council came back with a unanimous 7-0 decision.”
Satisfied with the proposal, Pembroke Pines Public Works Deputy Director Paul Edelstein signed off without reservation. “Parks and recreation did the review and made the decision, but we liked the energy savings and the warranty,” Edelstein said.
Performance and Budget Revolution Calm winds prevailed throughout the fall and spring allowing 13 different retrofits using SportsCluster Green systems. By May 2006, all systems had been installed with no interruptions to game schedules.
The Musco Control-Link® automated scheduling and monitoring system has taken the element of surprise out of the maintenance process. “In the past, a light could’ve gone out and our guys wouldn’t see it for two to three weeks or until a whole pole went dark,” said Vones. “Now if one light goes out we get an e-mail notice immediately from Musco’s Control Link Central™. So it keeps the control and the quality of the lighting at a high level.”
Manpower is improved, too. “We had a two-person crew assigned to east and west facilities and 30 to 40 percent of their time was spent changing out bulbs. Now they can hang the backstop netting and operate heavy equipment on projects we wouldn’t have a chance to get to,” Vones said.
“We’re very satisfied with Musco and the Green system. It’s a shame that Hurricane Wilma happened, but the end result is a lower fixture count, our electric bill has gone down and every facility offers 45 to 50 footcandles,” Vones concluded.
