LED video walls in Palm Beach County: wind, permits, power

Palm Beach County does not leave a designer to read the statewide figure. Its Planning, Zoning and Building division publishes county wind maps of its own. The Risk Category II sheet is Figure 1609.3(1), titled “Ultimate Design Wind Speeds, for Risk Category II Buildings and Other Structures,” and it comes from the county’s amendments to the Florida Building Code, Building, 7th Edition (2020). It carries contours at 150, 160 and 170 mph.

Three notes on that figure do most of the work. Note 2 permits linear interpolation between contours. Note 3 covers everything seaward of the last line: “Islands and coastal areas outside the last contour shall use the last wind speed contour of coastal area.” Note 5 says what the speeds represent, “approximately a 7% probability of exceedance in 50 years,” which is the 700-year mean recurrence interval.

The contours are drawn to be findable on the ground. The figure asks that they follow “recognized physical landmarks such as major roads, canals, rivers and lake shores wherever possible.” So which number applies to a given field is usually answerable from a map and a road name.

Risk category moves the whole set. The county’s Risk Category IV sheet, Figure 1609.3(3), runs 160, 170, 180 and 190 mph over the same ground. A build serving an event at a shelter or a hospital campus reads off a different contour than one on a park lawn.

One more line on the figure matters for anything with a face on it. The wind-borne debris region is the area within one mile of the coastal mean high water line where the ultimate design wind speed reaches 130 mph. The county’s figure records that all of unincorporated Palm Beach County falls inside it.

The numbers are also newer than a good deal of paperwork. The 2007 county sheet, prepared by the University of Florida’s GeoPlan Center for the state’s Codes and Standards Division against ASCE 7-98, drew its lines at 120, 130 and 140 mph. A wall specification written off that sheet sits thirty miles an hour below the figure the county publishes now.

Most cities in South Florida publish a special event lead time measured in weeks. Palm Beach County Parks and Recreation publishes one measured in months. Its special events FAQ states that “A minimum of 180 days advance planning time is required for all special events” and that “all new special event requests must be submitted at least 6 months before the event date.”

The county’s own guidelines split that by who is asking. Special Events “requires a minimum lead time of three months for nonprofit activities” and “six months or more for commercial activities.” Events can be booked up to a year ahead.

Two later dates sit inside that window. The security deposit falls due six weeks before the event. A cancellation inside 45 days can forfeit the booking fee, the facility rental, or both.

For a wall, the consequence is ordering. A design that depends on the county’s wind figure, a ballast plan and an engineer’s letter has six months of calendar to live in, and the date the paperwork is wanted arrives well before the date of the show.

The county’s special events pages are specific about the division of labour. A park provides “existing utilities, at no additional charge.” At the pavilions, that means water and outlets: “Pavilions have access to water and electrical outlets.”

Everything structural is the user’s. The FAQ puts it in one sentence: “Arrangements for the rental of stages, tents, dumpster’s and port-a-lets is the responsibility of the user.” The spelling is the county’s own.

A pavilion outlet is a convenience circuit. It will not carry a wall, a line array and a lighting rig, which is the question generator or a tie-in on a park site works through.

Insurance is written to reach the whole site rather than the organiser alone. The county requires a certificate of commercial general liability naming Palm Beach County as an additional insured, and it requires it of the permittee and of every caterer, vendor and entertainer on the permit.

The city publishes an audibility test with a clock attached rather than a level a show can be metered against. Under § 34-35, operating a sound-reproducing device “between the hours of 11:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. in such manner as to be plainly audible at a distance of 100 feet” is “prima facie evidence of a violation of this section.”

The same section holds a second clock for equipment. Noise-producing equipment used outdoors at a residence is restricted “between 8:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m.” That is three hours earlier than the amplified-sound line, and it is the one a crew striking a wall on a residential street meets first.

The article also refers to quiet zones established under § 34-38. A site inside one falls outside the general hours above, so the zone has to be checked against the address rather than assumed from the city name.

An hour and an audibility standard bite in different places. The hour sets the run of show. The distance sets where the system points and how it is delayed. The hours for other cities are collected in what time the music has to stop.