Thirsty flood-preventing concrete makes water disappear
With Hurricane Joaquin bearing down on the East Coast and as many as a dozen states preparing for emergency conditions, fears of flooding especially in major coastal cities are on everyone's mind.
UK company Tarmac has come up with a potential solution: permeable concrete. This newfangled material can soak up to 158 gallons of water a minute, which could go a long way toward minimizing the threat of flash flooding, especially in urban areas.
In this cool video presentation on its website, a truck dumps more than 1,000 gallons of water onto a parking lot in a minute. The water hits this new concrete called TopMix Permeable and it just disappears - as if it's an optical illusion.
Unlike traditional concrete where the water would roll right off, this material allows the water to soak through to the ground below. Responding to fears of greater flooding as global warming takes hold, the company say its product could be used in everything from parking lots to tennis courts to residential roads.
But wouldn't dirt clog up the concrete after a while?
The company said that there would have to be an "unrealistic amount of dirt applied to the surface for the pavement to cease functioning effectively," though it did warn against using the product in areas where sawdust is stockpiled or where there are heavy silt loads such as large recycling centers.