Overcoming Disaster

For Eustis Engineering, the New Orleans-based geotechnical engineering firm that's been providing deep foundation solutions since 1946, a defining moment in the company's history was Hurricane Katrina.
The 2005 superstorm and subsequent flooding that wreaked havoc on New Orleans not only damaged the company headquarters but also many of its employees' homes.
"It was an extremely challenging, stressful time," said Chad Held, vice president (business development) for Eustis Engineering. "Immediately afterwards, we didn't know what was going to happen, if we were going to be able to get back into the city, or when we'd be able to get back to work. We really weren't sure about the future of New Orleans at that time and how it was going to come back."
Despite the heavy toll from Katrina, Eustis Engineering and its staff wasted no time in immersing themselves into the hurricane recovery and reconstruction efforts.
John Eustis, president of Eustis Engineering and the son of the company's founder, J. Bres Eustis, points out that within a week of the disaster, a temporary office had been set up about 135 miles away in Lafayette, La.
"We had FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) trailers in the backyard of our office for people to stay in, because they didn't have houses to go home to," he said.
"That lasted for well over a year after Katrina," says Held. "It's a real testament to our employees that they had the mental resolve to not only show up to work but to also help themselves and their communities to get things rebuilt after Katrina."
Following the hurricane, Eustis Engineering participated in a $50-million mega-program to assist the New Orleans District Corps of Engineers in its investigation into how all the failures in the city's levees and flood walls occurred. The program required Eustis to drill and test hundreds of soil borings over the course of four years.
"It was a very tight schedule. We were drilling borings all over the place and we had to create a new state-of-the-art laboratory," said Eustis. "It was an intense time [but] we were able to accomplish a lot of work while maintaining safety and high quality."
Dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina also led to a decision by the company's leaders that it was time to expand.
"During this timeframe, we realized we needed to be a little more diverse and have more offices to be able to better serve our clients across the Gulf Coast region," said Held.
In addition to its rebuilt New Orleans headquarters and the Lafayette location, which became a permanent branch office, Eustis Engineering has offices in Gulfport, Miss. (opened 2005), Baton Rouge, La. (opened 2012) and Lake Charles, La. (opened 2015).
A sixth Eustis Engineering location opened in July in Houston, Texas. The company is enthusiastic about Houston and delivering its coastal engineering and construction expertise to the coastal Texas communities.
Pile testing expertise
Eustis Engineering performs geotechnical exploration and engineering work as well as field instrumentation installation and monitoring. Its specialties with respect to deep foundation design are dynamic pile testing and static load testing of timber, concrete and steel piles.
Eustis Engineering's expertise in pile testing has been developed in part through the company's deep understanding of soil conditions all along the Gulf Coast from Texas to Florida.
"We have extensive knowledge with regards to soil adhesion and adhesion limitation values of soils to particular pile types," said Held. "We utilize that knowledge in conjunction with our experience in dynamic pile testing and static load testing to optimize [a project's] design and come up with the most cost-effective piles that would be best suitable for deep foundation use."
Eustis Engineering also utilizes advanced technologies, such as in-situ tests that measure the strength and direction of subsoils, that allow its engineers to test piles in challenging conditions, such as in marshes and swamps, in the open water or underwater.
The oldest continually operating geotechnical company on the Gulf Coast and the third oldest in U.S., Eustis Engineering has been in business more than 70 years. During that time, it has taken on more than 25,000 projects.
"We have a wealth of information going back to 1946. We still have all of our file folders for every single job we've worked on," said Eustis.
Among Eustis Engineering's most notable projects are the Louisiana Superdome that went up in the early 1970s and the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal Lake Borgne Surge Barrier built post-Katrina in New Orleans.
Eustis also notes that the skyline of the Big Easy wouldn't be what it is today without the solid foundations that Eustis Engineering helped design.
As Eustis puts it, "A lot of people said you could not build skyscrapers in New Orleans because there's no bedrock."
But he says that didn't stop his company from coming up with an innovative solution that enabled the construction of a 51-story high-rise in downtown New Orleans.
Completed in 1972, the Hancock Whitney Centre building, then known as One Shell Square, was built using a massive reinforced concrete foundation that was anchored by 240-foot-long octagonal piles.
That led the way for other Eustis Engineering high-rise projects to go up in the ensuing years, including the Pan American Life Building and some of the city's best-known hotels.
"We've really put our thumbprint on most of the high-rise buildings in downtown New Orleans," said Eustis.
In addition to commercial buildings, Eustis Engineering has worked on massive projects such as the University Medical Center a billion-dollar hospital complex in New Orleans and the mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion project, a $1.4-billion land-building initiative that's a signature project in the State of Louisiana's Coastal Master Plan.
Eustis Engineering has also had a hand in many industrial construction projects on the Gulf Coast. This includes geotechnical work for:
New BASF chemical plant in Freeport, Texas
Marathon Petroleum facility in Garyville, La.
Sasol's Lake Charles Chemical Complex
Thermal Energy Corporation combined heat and power project in Houston
Shintech Louisiana facility expansion in Plaquemine, La.
For these projects, Eustis Engineering has performed a wide range of services, including geotechnical field exploration, pile load testing, pile integrity testing, test pile installation and performance monitoring.
Eustis Engineering joined the Pile Driving Contractors Association 10 years ago, largely because of the important work PDCA does in supporting the use of driven pile construction.
"[Driven piles] are essential to the long-term, reliable performance of the large structures that are built in this area, and PDCA helps promote the use of these foundations," said Held. "Without the ability to properly design and construct these deep foundations, we wouldn't have many of the larger structures and facilities that we currently have along the Gulf Coast."

Posted in PileDriver Magazine. Tagged as Edition 4, 2019.

Comments

Post a comment (* required field)

Name *
Email * (will not be published)
Website
Comments *

Archives

Powered by BRYNK® Growth Platform