FORT SMITH -- The School Board is weighing options to reduce flooding in the Peak Innovation Center parking lot after seeing the effects from the torrential rain in June.
Shawn Shaffer, executive director of facility operations, said at the School Board's meeting Monday the engineering firm Halff Associates did models of possible improvements looking at both 25-year and 100-year flood plans.
A 100-year flood plan means flooding at Peak has a 1% chance of equalling or exceeding the event in June, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
"If projected accurately, 100-year floods will rarely be experienced," a FEMA training document states. "It should be noted that the majority of floods consist of lesser frequency events such as one-year, five-year, or 10-year floods. It is never the case that an area experiences either no flooding or only 100-year flooding."
Allen Deaver, Halff Associates project manager, presented the board five options to keep the lot from flooding. Option 1 is to move a 42-inch pipe in order to separate the amount of water coming in from neighborhoods east of the site. Option 2 removes all 42-inch pipes and replaces them with a concrete-lined channel, while option 3 replaces the 42-inch pipes and an elliptical pipe. Option 4 involves moving the parking lot to a higher elevation on-site. He said each option is more expensive than the last, but also reduces the expected amount of water pooling after a flood. Only option four is expected to entirely eliminate all expected pooling.
"Should none of the previous options be selected, we still recommend some cleanup items on the site, just to improve overall drainage as it sits now," Deaver said. "There's several inches in multiple spots, up to 12 inches in some locations, where water is pooling just because of poor downstream conditions located on site that could be cleaned up and allow better efficiency through the system."
Deaver said the cleanup is estimated around $150,000, if the board approves all the recommendations. He said the cleanup would help remove pooling quicker, not reduce the amount received.
Shaffer recommended only doing the cleanup option, which the board members named option five. He said Peak's building flooded due to a drain blockage, which has since been removed, so any option would just reduce the amount of pooling in the parking lot.
Shaffer said even in a 100-year rain event, flooding is expected to stay at least a foot away from entering the building.
Located at 5900 Painter Lane in Fort Smith, the new center opened to students in late March and is a collaboration between the School District and the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith. It serves roughly 280 students from 22 school districts across Crawford, Franklin, Johnson, Logan, Scott and Sebastian counties through the university's Western Arkansas Technical Center program.
The center houses courses for automation and robotics, computer integrated machining, electronics technology and industrial maintenance, emergency medical responders, medical office assistants, network engineering and unmanned aerial systems.
Several School Board members brought up concerns at their June meeting about whether the area had a history of flooding, and, if so, to what point and whether this was considered before construction. They similarly brought up concerns at Monday's meeting about why the cleanup wasn't done during Peak's construction.
"I don't think it should've been brought to the board, I think it should've been done, because that's just maintaining the property, just like cutting the grass," board member Talicia Richardson said.
"This is what other districts, other schools are going to see," board member Dalton Person said. "It's a brand new facility, and we need it to be in great shape. I'm in favor of spending more than the bare minimum to ensure that we don't have regular pooling of water in one of our parking lots in this shining star for this district. So I don't think we need to just do the bare minimum here."
Board member Dee Blackwell asked for more information, including costs for each option, be brought to a future board meeting.
Shaffer gave a timeline of events at the June 27 School Board meeting. He said about noon June 7, he was notified the center's parking lot was flooded with a custodian's car under water.
Shaffer said students were quickly moved about a mile away to Barling Elementary School and their parents were notified. He said by the time he entered the facility at 5900 Painter Lane, water entered about 15 to 20 feet along the majority of the north side of the facility, and 20 to 30 feet on the east side.
The district had several companies working to address the flooding, including Turn Key Construction Management, Halff Associates and Servpro. It was determined a pipe had failed on the north wall, and plywood forms also broke and got into and obstructed drain pipes.
Scott Tucker, a Servpro production manager, explained any porous items in contact with the floodwater -- including drywall and insulation -- need to be replaced.