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Ritz Carlton Resort in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, specifies SentryGlas^®

The Ritz Carlton in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands has 24-hour hurricane protection and reduced insurance premiums after retrofitting with DuPont™ SentryGlas®.

One of the Caribbean's most elite hotels, the Ritz Carlton St. Thomas Resort, prepared itself in June 1997 for the upcoming hurricane season by retrofitting with impact-resistant windows laminated with DuPont^™ SentryGlas^® intrusion-resistant multilayer in a fast-track and hassle-free solution that not only cost less to implement than installing hurricane shutters, but resulted in reduced insurance premiums.

After Hurricane Marilyn smashed St. Thomas with 240kph winds in 1995, it took almost two years to repair the damage and return the island to the worldclass tourist destination it once was. The damage by Marilyn was only intensified in July 1966 when Hurricane Bertha passed over the island. As a result of the devastation, the Factory Mutual insurance company's evaluation service mandated the specification of hurricane products such as DuPont SentyGlas^® that have passed South Florida's Building Code. Without the use of these products, hotels on St. Thomas run the risk of receiving an insurance policy with an extremely high deductible and very little hurricane coverage.

The Ritz Carlton retained Glazing Consultants Inc. of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida to select the approved materials, negotiate with the insurance company to arrive at mutually agreeable design criteria and work with the building contractor to satisfy all requirements. GCI President, Paul Beeers, told LGN: "The performance requirements regarding resistance to both impact and wind pressure cycles were very rigorous. Window systems containing SentryGlas^® passed the strictest Florida codes and therefore fit the Ritz's requirements perfectly".

"From June-September 1997, we designed an innovative retrofit of the guest rooms with SentryGlas^®, using the existing frames. This worked very well both from a cost viewpoint – it amounted to half the cost of either shutters or new window systems – and from a practical point of view, since the renovation could be carried out very simply, without causing extraneous damage to the interior of the rooms or distress (eg. loud noise) to the hotel guests. The retrofit solution passed Factory Mutual's terms for hurricane protection with flying colors."
SentryGlas^® is a three-layer composite that is factory-laminated onto ordinary window glass. Impact resistant windows containing SentryGlas^® are able to withstand repeated impact from windborne debris or vandalism, preventing penetration. It also stops broken glass shards from showering into the interior of the building thus protecting people and property.

Guests and employees at the Ritz Carlton can now rest secure in the knowledge that they have 24-hour protection from tropical storms and hurricanes all the year-round.