October 10 In 2018, Tyndall Air Force Base in the Gulf of Mexico – a pillar of American air superiority – came under air attack. Hurricane Michael, first spotted as a Category 2 storm off the coast of Florida, unexpectedly became a Category 5. Sustained winds of 155 miles per hour tore into the base, tossing utility poles, toppling an F-22 and a total of over 200 buildings. The only saving grace: despite its location on a peninsula, Tyndall escaped flood damage. Michael’s storm surge of 9 to 14 feet flooded other parts of Florida. Tyndall’s main defense was luck.
The $5 billion Tyndall disaster was just one of a growing number of extreme weather events that convinced the U.S. Department of Defense that it needed modern ideas to protect the 1,700 coastal bases it is responsible for around the world. As hurricanes Helene and Milton just demonstrated, beach residents face increasing threats from climate change, and the Pentagon is no exception. Rising oceans chew up the shores. Stronger storms may be more likely to flood land.
In response, Tyndall will later this month test a modern way to protect shorelines from increased waves and storms: a prototype artificial reef designed by a team led by Rutgers University scientists. The 50-foot-wide system, composed of three chevron-shaped structures, each weighing approximately 46,000 pounds, can accommodate 70 percent oomph According to tests, beyond the waves. But this isn’t your grandfather’s breakwater. It was specifically designed to colonize oysters, one of nature’s most effective wave killers.
They believe that if scientists can optimize these creatures to work with modern artificial structures placed at sea, the resulting barriers will be able to absorb 90 percent of the energy from the waves. David Bushek, who heads the Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory at Rutgers, swears there’s no hope a megastorm will arrive and show what his team’s unit is made of. But he isn’t NO hoping for one thing. “Models are always imperfect. They are always a replica of something,” he says. “These aren’t real things.”
The project is one of three under a $67.6 million program launched by the U.S. government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa). The initiative, cheekily called Reefense, is the Pentagon’s attempt to test whether “hybrid” reefs, combining man-made structures with oysters or coral, can work as well as a good ancient breakwater. Darpa has selected three research teams in 2022, all led by US universities. After two years of intense research and development, their prototypes are starting to hit the water, and Rutgers is the first.
Today, the Pentagon protects its coastal assets the same way civilians do: by strengthening them. Typical approaches include reinforcing the shore with retaining walls or stacking bulky objects such as rocks or concrete blocks in long rows. However, hardscape designs come with compromises. They reflect, not absorb, wave energy, so protecting your own shoreline means exposing someone else’s shoreline. They are also stagnant: as sea levels rise and storms become stronger, it becomes easier for water to overcome these structures. This causes them to wear out faster and require constant, costly repairs.