Hurricane season changes how we stack

We are eleven miles from the water on the Georgia coast. I have watched a yard reorganise itself overnight in a tropical storm that never made landfall, and the lesson was cheap because nothing hit anything. The next one would not be.

Why an empty tote is the worst object in a yard

Consider the physics. An empty 275-gallon composite tote weighs about 132 lb. Stood on its base it presents roughly 15 square feet of broadside to the wind — 48 inches wide by 46 inches tall.

A steel drum is heavier per unit of frontal area and rolls rather than tumbles. A pallet of boxed goods is dense and low. A tote is the worst combination available: light, tall, flat-sided and with a high centre of gravity. At sustained 50 mph it will start to walk. At 70 it leaves.

The tipping threshold is lower than the sliding threshold for a stacked pair, because the stack is taller and the leverage is worse. Two high is roughly twice the frontal area and nearly three times the overturning moment, which is why the two-high cap matters more than it sounds.

What we changed

From the first of June through the end of November, the outdoor yard runs under different rules. These are written on the wall by the scale house.

1. Two high maximum outdoors. Three-high empty stacks are fine in February. They are a liability in August and the extra ground space is cheaper than the alternative.
2. Long axis into the prevailing wind. Presenting 40 inches instead of 48 reduces frontal area by about 17% for free. Our prevailing storm wind here comes from the east-northeast.
3. Strap the top course. Two lateral straps from the top unit down to the pallet of the unit below. This converts two light objects into one heavier one, which is most of the battle.
4. Ballast the perimeter. Outer rows get 150 gallons of water each, which puts them at roughly 1,380 lb. Water is free, heavy, and drains out afterwards without a disposal question.
5. Nothing loose above waist height. Lids, pallets, corner board, empty cages. All of it goes inside or gets strapped.

The ballast trick is the one people miss

Filling totes with water sounds laborious until you work out what it buys. A 150-gallon fill takes about four minutes on a two-inch line, costs nothing, and takes the unit from 132 lb to 1,380 lb — a tenfold increase in the thing that matters.

You do not need to ballast the whole yard. Ballasting the outer two rows creates a heavy perimeter that shelters the interior, and the interior units are then protected by the ones in front of them. We ballast roughly 15% of outdoor stock and it stabilises the lot.

Do not fill to the brim. Two thirds is the right level: it gives you most of the mass, leaves headspace so the unit does not bulge in heat, and means a tipped unit sheds water rather than acting as a sealed projectile.

Water is the cheapest ballast on earth and it leaves by itself afterwards. Use the product you are selling.

What we got wrong the first time

In our second season I ballasted a perimeter row and did not check the base condition first. Two of those units were on tired hardwood bases. A thousand pounds of water on a base that has been outdoors through a wet winter found the weak board, and we spent a morning dealing with a collapsed unit and 150 gallons across the apron.

Now the rule is: ballast goes on steel or composite bases only. It is also one more reason we no longer put hardwood bases anywhere near our own pool.

The second thing we got wrong was timing. We used to prepare when a storm was named, which in practice meant a crew doing physical outdoor work in rising wind. We now run the June reconfiguration as a scheduled job and leave the yard in storm layout for six months, accepting the lost ground space as a cost of being here.

The post-storm walk

Afterwards there is a sequence, because wind damage to totes is not always visible from where you parked.

• Count first. A missing unit is a liability question before it is an inventory one — somebody needs to know where it went.
• Check for units that moved but did not tip. Dragging across concrete scuffs the base and can shear fixings.
• Look for lids that departed. An open tote fills with rain and then weighs 2,400 lb in a place you did not plan for.
• Check ballasted units for base damage before draining. The weight is still on the base while you look.
• Inspect any unit that tipped as though it had been dropped — because it has been. Bottom radius, cage welds, base fixings.

If you store totes outdoors

This applies well beyond the hurricane coast. Derecho events in the Midwest and winter storms in the Northeast produce the same wind speeds, and a yard in Ohio has exactly the same 15 square feet of broadside to worry about.

• Cap empty stacks at two high whenever a wind event is forecast.
• Ballast the windward rows with water. Steel or composite bases only.
• Strap top courses to the base below, laterally, with corner board at the contact points.
• Shade or wrap anything staying out for a season — UV crazing is the slower version of the same problem. See winterizing for the cold-weather equivalent.