{"id":42381,"date":"2026-02-04T10:38:37","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T15:38:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/?p=42381"},"modified":"2026-02-04T10:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T15:40:12","slug":"why-light-poles-failed-in-hurricane-ian-despite-meeting-design-standards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/essie\/why-light-poles-failed-in-hurricane-ian-despite-meeting-design-standards\/","title":{"rendered":"Why light poles failed in Hurricane Ian despite meeting design standards"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-light-gray-background-color has-background is-nowrap is-layout-flex wp-container-core-group-is-layout-ad2f72ca wp-block-group-is-layout-flex\">\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>UF researchers found that aluminum light poles damaged during Hurricane Ian failed not because of extreme winds alone, but due to a combination of manufacturing defects, design features and installation errors that reduced their built-in safety margins.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Hidden air pockets inside the metal weakened the pole bases by as much as 25%, while small installation issues added stress that pushed the structures beyond what they could safely handle.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The study shows that meeting design codes does not always guarantee real-world performance and highlights the need for better quality control, installation practices and modest design changes to improve hurricane resilience.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>When Hurricane Ian moved across Florida in 2022, several aluminum light poles on a Central Florida bridge collapsed or cracked, even though wind speeds remained below the structures\u2019 design limits. A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S1350630726000506?ref=pdf_download&amp;fr=RR-2&amp;rr=9c4a4ebd3835ba37\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">new University of Florida study<\/a> reveals how hidden flaws in design and installation contributed to their unexpected collapse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Researchers from UF\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering<\/a> found that the failures were not caused by extreme winds alone, nor by long-term fatigue. Instead, the damage resulted from a dangerous combination of manufacturing defects, stress-concentrating design features and installation-related errors that sharply reduced the poles\u2019 safety margin under hurricane conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.ufl.edu\/2026\/02\/light-poles\/\">Read full story at news.ufl.edu<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UF researchers found that aluminum light poles damaged during Hurricane Ian failed not because of extreme winds alone, but due to a combination of manufacturing defects, design features and installation errors that reduced their built-in safety margins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":42383,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"single-templates\/single-sidebar-none.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"featured_post":"off","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[31,57,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essie","category-stories","category-research-innovation"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42381"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42385,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42381\/revisions\/42385"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}