University estimates $2M to repair flood damage

4/14/10 - The flood of 2010 caused great inconveniences to many Rhode Islanders, but as far as financial burdens go, the University of Rhode Island was lucky, Dave Lavallee of the Department of Communications and Marketing said yesterday. Lavallee said the estimated cost of damage repairs among all URI campuses is $2 million.

However, the university will not be responsible for the cost of all repairs, said Jerry Sidio, director of Facilities Services. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will reimburse a percentage of the costs to university buildings, but it is too soon to tell how much FEMA will reimburse the university, Sidio added.

The flood caused water damage to 22 academic and administrative buildings. The two most damaged buildings are Lippitt and Washburn halls, Sidio said. Repairs will prevent any further mold growth in the buildings.

An expense for which Sidio does not think the university will be reimbursed is the cost of the power outages during the storm. Lavallee said the power outage cost the university $40,000, but Sidio said it is hard to tell how much of the outage was cause by the storm and how much was coincidental.

The damage to a substation on campus was unrelated to the rain, Sidio said, and the repairs made it necessary for URI to turn off power.

Sidio said one the most affected areas on the Kingston campus is the filter room for the pools of the Tootell Aquatic Center. Equipment in the filter room, located underground and about the size of a small classroom, was damaged from water pressure. Sidio said the flood caused the equipment, connected by metal pipes, to move and the filters couldn't function correctly.

The pools themselves didn't flood, but a damaged filter room left athletic department employees unable to open the pools, which are currently shut down because the water cannot be maintained.

Because of this, the university has had to cancel or postpone a number of programs until temporary repairs happen, Sidio said. He added that along with a loss of revenue, the closing of the pool was a significant inconvenience to students and community members who use the pools.

"[URI] is the largest provider of swimming pools in the area," Sidio said. "There are not too many alternatives. We will get the pools back in place as soon as we can."

Sidio said repairing the pools is the university's "biggest challenge," but almost everything else on campus is now working, and will be able to keep functioning.

Although he did not give a specific date when the Tootell pools will reopen, Sidio did say that before any permanent repairs take place, a temporary fix will happen to allow the pools to open sooner.

The most expensive item, however, is the expansion and reparation of the crosswalk by White Horn Brook, located behind Ellery Hall. Lavallee said repairing of While Horn Brook would cost more than $800,000 to repair before reimbursements from FEMA.

"We are finishing up designs in the next couple of weeks and hope to have [the projects] out-to-bid this summer," Sidio said.

He added that he hopes the projects will be completed by next winter, and that there is a small likelihood the projects will be completed by fall.

"We want to make sure we can afford the preliminary repairs," he said.

Sidio said Facilities Services will rebuild the walkway near Ellery pond and the filter room in the Tootell fitness center so that in the event of another flood-related emergency, they will not incur as much damage as they did this time.

The walkway by Ellery pond will soon be a bridge, Sidio said, and Facilities Services will arrange for a 2-foot cement floor to be poured over the existing floor of the filter room, so that the water pressure will not damage the equipment. There is no estimate for that particular revision, he added.

The residence halls had no significant damage, but walls in the basement of Bressler Hall will have to be repaired to prevent mold growth, Sidio said. There are no residents in that part of the building.