The City of Brookings has received a grant award in the amount of $1,287,988 to fund the seismic rehabilitation of the Police and Fire Stations.
The funding cannot be spent on the seismic retrofit of the City Hall offices or the Council Chambers. We made our best efforts to demonstrate that these areas of the building are also a part of the overall “critical public building” and that the Council Chambers is designated as the secondary EOC.
The grant funding will pay for strengthening shear walls and properly attaching walls to the roof in accordance with current seismic standards, replacing the roof to improve shear capacity, providing seismic isolation between buildings, installing steel seismic strapping, bracing all piping and HVAC equipment and other related work.
No local funding match is required. “As we move to the preliminary design stage, we plan to look at incorporating a pitch roof over the entire building into the project,” said City Manager Gary Milliman. “This would resolve the constant maintenance and periodic failure of the existing flat roof. We will also be considering removal of the hose tower, which is no longer in use.”
The proposed schedule is to begin design work in July and start construction in April 2018, with project completion by December 2018. The actual deadline for project completion is September 2019.
Brookings City Hall, police station and fire station are considered a “moderate” risk for collapse in a seismic event. The moderate designation for collapse that is assigned by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) indicates that the building would receive a moderate amount of damage in the event of a large earthquake but would not necessary collapse. Brookings is located in a “very high risk” seismicity zone.
The original building housing City Hall, police and fire was constructed in 1967 and there have been several additions since then.
Brookings is among 47 recipients of some $28.6 million in funding from the Seismic Rehabilitation Grant Program (SRGP), a state competitive grant program that provides funding for the seismic rehabilitation of critical public buildings, particularly public schools and emergency services facilities. The maximum grant for any one facility is $1.5 million. No local match is required.
Public K-12 school districts, community colleges, and education service districts are eligible for the grant program. For emergency services facilities, the emphasis is on first responder buildings including hospitals with acute inpatient care facilities, fire stations, police stations, sheriff's offices, 9-1-1 centers and Emergency Operations Centers (EOCs).
“We are pleased to receive grant funding for this work,” said City Manager Gary Milliman, who served worked on the development of the grant program while serving on the on the Oregon Seismic Safety Policy Advisory Commission (OSSPAC) in 2008-11.
“This is a part of our ongoing effort to improve the resiliency of our community to withstand the effects of a major earthquake,” Milliman said.
“Brookings schools have also been awarded over $4.0 million in grant funding from SRGP over the past several years,” Milliman noted. “This is important for the safety of school children and staff, and because the schools will be utilized for sheltering during a disaster event.”