Mitigating hurricane storm damage at Falmouth cruise terminal

Jamaica’s north coast became home to a new cruise terminal in 2011. The Falmouth Terminal includes an approximate 760-metre quay for the reception of two cruise liners carrying a total of 10,000 passengers. The facility is intended to welcome tourists to the island for many years to come. However, the extreme hurricane events that occur in the region pose a flood threat to the terminal buildings. The client needed to establish whether there was a risk of flooding of the terminal buildings caused by wave overtopping during the worst of Jamaica’s storms. If so, they needed to know how to protect the existing structures against the extreme waves.