When the timber boardwalk at South Carolina's Walterboro Wildlife Sanctuary failed less than a decade after it was built, the City of Walterboro needed a longer-term solution.
In this episode, host Carrie Parada, PE, talks with PermaTrak Director of Engineering Andrew Craig, PE, about what went wrong with the original structure, how the design team engineered a replacement around a narrow, tree-root-heavy corridor in the ACE Basin wetlands, and how that new boardwalk held up when Hurricane Helene hit just months after opening.
Key Timestamps:
- (00:00) Project overview: Walterboro Wildlife Sanctuary
- (01:36) Site conditions: low-country wetlands and black water
- (02:22) Why the original timber boardwalk failed
- (03:43) Material selection: timber vs. precast concrete
- (04:41) Expected service life of a concrete boardwalk
- (05:11) Engineering challenges: narrow corridor and tree roots
- (06:37) Foundation system: helical piers
- (07:13) Construction method: partial top-down explained
- (12:53) Eliminating handrails by lowering the boardwalk
- (15:50) Bidding concrete vs. timber as an alternate
- (18:22) Hurricane Helene: performance and repair
- (19:52) Owner feedback and future phases
- (20:29) Key engineering takeaway
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