RISKWORLD 2026: Comcast, Ingevity and FM on preparing for natural disasters
Before Comcast could build Epic Universe, the company spent two years raising 35 acres of land. The site in Orlando was in a 500-year flood zone, creating significant flood risk without intervention. Tens of thousands of truckloads raised the entire site three feet above that flood line before any construction began.
Krzysztof Wrzos, who manages property risk at Comcast NBCUniversal, shared the Epic story during a RISKWORLD panel on building resilience before natural disasters strike. He joined Peter Roueche, director of risk management at Ingevity Corporation, and Jacob Brown, an FM account engineer, for a conversation moderated by Katy Shannon, FM operations senior vice president, chemical operations.
The panel demonstrated how a $124 billion entertainment and media company and a $1 billion specialty chemical manufacturer face the same fundamental risks from floods, hurricanes and wildfires.
Surprisingly similar
Comcast serves millions of broadband customers who will switch providers if service goes down for days. Its other businesses at NBCUniversal include theme parks, streaming and entertainment properties.
Ingevity is a specialty chemical manufacturer producing activated carbon for the automotive industry. Extended downtime would leave customers without products competitors can't supply.
"When you peel back risks, they all tend to overlap," Roueche said. "Especially when it comes to natural catastrophes because floods impact everybody."
Comcast can rebuild. Ingevity can't. The North Charleston facility operates on the Cooper River in South Carolina, where a 500-year flood would put seven or eight feet of water above the plant's midpoint.
When you can start from scratch
Epic Universe shows what resilience looks like when you can build from the ground up. The park is part of Comcast's Orlando properties, which hold $10 billion to $12 billion in total insured value. After raising the land above the flood zone, every structure was built to hurricane standards.
Even the decorative elements serve a protective function. For example, the Harry Potter Ministry of Magic area includes elaborate Parisian street facades.
"They're concrete, steel reinforced," Brown said. "Every window you see is hurricane rated. There are sprinklers behind there. There don't need to be. But that is part of the experience."
If a major hurricane makes a direct hit on the Orlando parks, FM expects damage of only 3 to 4 percent of the insured value. The parks would typically reopen within 36 hours. Comcast completed 154 plan reviews with FM in 2025 while finishing Epic Universe, all working toward FM’s Highly Protected Risk (HPR) status for the new park.
When you can’t
Ingevity inherited its North Charleston facility from paper mill operations built a century ago. It faces a double challenge: It's in both an earthquake zone and a floodplain.
New equipment gets installed on seven-foot concrete platforms with corners anchored to bedrock, putting critical infrastructure above the flood line. A transformer installed recently is now seven feet above the floodplain.
Roueche explained why electrical protection is non-negotiable: "If your car ever falls into a pond and the engine gets wet, you might as well total the vehicle."
Flooding an electrical room means pulling new wiring throughout the entire plant. For existing buildings, Ingevity installed FM Approved flood barriers on all electrical room doors. Operators can deploy them within two hours when a hurricane approaches.
Sometimes it's the 50-year flood
At another Ingevity plant, the control room flooded whenever it rained. The sump, pipe and pump were undersized. Fixing it to handle a 500-year flood would cost $15 million.
"We decided we can instead spend $1.5 million and do it for a 50-year flood," Roueche said. "We'll regrade some things so the water will flow somewhere else. There wasn't a great solution, but there are always alternatives. Sometimes it's the 50-year flood you're preparing for, not the 500-year floodplain."
The timing question
Roueche prioritizes projects based on impact, funding the most critical first and building a timeline to complete the rest. Wrzos uses a top-down approach when local teams can't secure budget.
"It's far less costly when you do it from the beginning," Wrzos said. "There may be an incremental cost that is a lot easier to digest" than addressing issues eight months into a project when costs have tripled.
The panel demonstrated two distinct paths to the same goal. Comcast built resilience into Epic Universe from the ground up. Ingevity retrofits a century-old plant with targeted solutions. Both companies face floods and hurricanes. Both prove that while nature can't be prevented, losses can be.
Learn more about FM’s engineering approach to loss prevention.