What next? Seismic evaluation of schools

PROVO — Provo School District's successful bond election is a victory for people calling for seismic upgrading in the city's schools.

Sixty-nine percent of voters on June 27 approved a $35 million bond issuance that will be used to build and renovate schools and study seismic safety in the district's older buildings.

As a result of the bond's passage, Timpanogos Elementary School will be rebuilt on its current site. The new Timpanogos building, expected to be complete in 2008, will be built to current seismic standards.

"We'll all either relax a little bit or have a greater sense of urgency," said Carolyn Wright, a member of Provo's Board of Education. "The studies are key to what we do next."

The seismic safety studies will begin in 2007 and will include seismic assessments, in which building safety is studied. Experts also will do geotechnical studies. For those, soils on school properties will be studied.

The cost of the studies will be about $173,500.

But a study at a school does not necessarily mean the buildings will receive seismic upgrades. District chiefs only promised bond money for seismic studies.

School board Vice President Sandy Packard hopes that seismic upgrades will be incorporated into the building maintenance schedule. For instance, if a school is scheduled to get a new roof in 10 years, the new roof would have seismic upgrades.

Packard, who said she sought a seat on the board six years ago partly because of her concern about seismic safety, has met with a district official and three structural engineers to discuss the seismic-safety plan.

"We went through each of the schools in the district and asked them which schools would be high priority, medium priority and low priority," Packard said. "And they gave us lists. It's fairly logical. It's the oldest buildings (that are) in the worst shape and need examination."

Seismic safety codes were set in the 1970s. They are changed or renewed every three years.

Provo district chiefs have decided that engineers will not study buildings on the "low priority" list — anything built after 1990.

A day before the bond election, Gary Wallace, from a local group that calls itself Save All From Earthquakes, advocated Provo's bond proposal in a press conference at Mountain View High School in Orem, in the neighboring Alpine School District.

Wallace praised the high school for diagonal beams that surround the building and will likely support it during an earthquake.

"Instead of talking about earthquakes, worrying about earthquakes, you can do something (by voting for the bond)," said Wallace, who works in the engineering field.

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E-mail: lhancock@desnews.com