How Terrazzo Weathers a Hurricane

When Hurricane Katrina tore through New Orleans on Aug. 29, 2005, it took over 1,500 lives. The costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, property damage was estimated at $81.2 billion.

Some 80 percent of the city and vast sections of neighboring areas were flooded. Most of the deluge resulted from failure of the city’s levees and flood walls. Salt water surged in, picking up mud, waste, sewage, petroleum, chemicals and acids. The water saturated the city, then stayed, stagnating for weeks.

Among the massive property losses were most floorings: wood, carpet, ceramic tile and VCT.

Terrazzo floors generally survived Katrina intact, though, reported architect Alton Davis of Richard C. Lambert Consultants, leader of the architectural team on Lakefront Airport terminal’s post-Katrina renovation.

At the airport, the hurricane left ground level terrazzo floors submerged under four feet of water, furniture and equipment adrift. Once the water subsided, the airport’s newer materials especially had sustained damage, Davis noted. None of the drywall installed since the 1960s survived. Even the grid behind the plaster rusted. But except for a few places where heavy equipment had gouged or cracked the floor and required repair, the floors needed no more than a light sanding and polish.

Damages from the hurricane led to a complete $17-million restoration of the 1934 airport to its original design. One of the earliest and few remaining Art Deco terminals in the U.S., it had been renovated in the 1960s as a monolithic, bunker-style fallout shelter.

Terrazzo floors around the city were found intact. Many were in older buildings, including the train station terminal. If structural collapse or large equipment falling had chipped or gouged them, these floors were reparable. As in the airport, most required nothing more than polishing and refinishing.

Today’s generation of epoxy, thin-set terrazzo is less labor-intensive, but even stronger and more crack-resistant than traditional cementitious stucco, while retaining the original product’s longevity.

A victim of its own success, terrazzo’s extreme durability leads to a misperception of its cost, Davis reflected.

“The perception is that everything old is prohibitively expensive, and that something you can buy and bring to the site is cheaper.”

While the initial cost for installing terrazzo is among the more expensive flooring options, “look what you’re getting for the money,” Davis stated.

For the architect, terrazzo’s design flexibility may be its most valuable attribute.

“It’s as fluid as you want in design,” Davis said. “It’s hard to be that flexible with other hard finishes. You can do patterns in concrete but not nearly as beautifully. Terrazzo is the prettiest flooring you can possibly have, more than stone or concrete.

“It’s a class A finish,” he concluded. “Katrina just reemphasized what I already knew about terrazzo. When they tear down the building it will still be there. If the building lasts hundreds of years, the terrazzo will last hundreds of years.”