Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, July 6, 2010,
Item 14
Well, on number 14, receive briefing and take appropriate action regarding recent damages to the county facility at 1600 smith road, and related issues.
>> good morning, roger el khoury, director of facilities management department.
>> good morning.
>> is the whole court aware of what happened? Sometime going to go --
>> i'm going to go over it briefly about the structure, what happened, you know. It's a building, a single story. It's a 600 smith road building where we hose the aqua life extension and also the facility management warehouse. The building is a single story and was
>> [indiscernible] exterior panel and preengineered steel framing for the roof structure. The steel roof structure consists of a
>> [indiscernible] and east and west direction and they are spread apart about four to five feet. Also support to continuous steel angle attached to the tilt wall. Well, also we have a -- an gutter on the roof the buildings. With the heavy rain that we had experienced in the east side of the buildings failed. The roof failed on the portion of that because we believe because of the pounding of the water -- pooling of the water on top of the east side of the buildings. And that -- right now we are seeing probably clogging into the interior -- channels and over on the -- on the -- overflow also was clogged. So this is a situation what's happened over there. Immediately we responded and we had a -- we put a temporary roofing on top of the failure area. There will be no more rain going into the buildings, we experienced a good success on that,
>> [indiscernible] rain, risk management were called to the buildings and they cleared the water from the inside. And what we did, also, over the weekend, we put some support on the outside, support in the tilt
>> [indiscernible] structure because the roof pulled away from the structure, the tilt wall because they were supported together. This will prevent any failure of that tilt wall toward the streets. We support it with four support on that. At the meantime, we are -- we are trying to work on the structural analysis, structural design and put this -- put this -- structural design will be done like one week or so, we are expecting that we have a contractor to board to take care of the problems and we are trying to hire the -- the -- the job
>> [indiscernible] contract we have with the county. Within two months we should have that roof fixed and back -- the building back in shape. We are planning to have that by the end of august. So that's what -- what happened on that and we responded immediately on that. And the main thing about all of that, nobody was hurt.
>> sherri flemming, executive manager for health and human services and veterans services. I just echo what roger said. No one was hurt, i think it was due to some quick action by the office manager, alydia ortato who was able to move the staff quite enthusiastically out of the building at the time that the failure occurred. We are very pleased staff have not been injured. You may recall that we have texas a&m personnel in that facility as well as travis county employees. Today, the texas a&m staff are working remotely. The travis county employees reported to palm square this morning. And we are housing them in our training room and one of our conversation rooms pending some decision with facilities management and they have made some suggestions to us about possible locations. To set them up on the temporary basis. What we -- what is important for the public who may be listening to us, is that if you have business with the texas agrilife extension, we ask that you call the travis county health and human services and veterans services main number, which is 854-4100. And if you request that you need information regarding the texas agrilife extension service, we do have one of their personnel we can refer those phone calls to and can let you know about any changes in programming or any questions that you might have about connecting with any of the ex-extension agents. So please call the health and human services main number, 854-4100. So we can connect with you the agrilife extension staff. It's important to note that that building is closed to the public and so the best course would be to call and not travel out to the building because it is closed to the public.
>> mr. Mansewer.
>> judge, commissioners, our property insurance carrier has been put on notice of the loss. We do have a $50,000 deductible. We also have business interruption insurance that will pick up some of the costs of the move. And relocation of the staff. We would like to ask that -- that the court give us permission to -- to use the fixed -- the deductible to fund some of the transfer and move.
>> so where are they today?
>> the travis county personnel are at palm square location. We had room in our training room that already has computers set up. We also have the management staff housed in a -- in a conference room. The texas a&m agents and their personnel are currently working remotely. So they may be working from home. There's -- there's at least our nutrition program was actually housed in a building across the street. It's 100% a&m. And so there was some ability to use some office space sort of -- sort of swing -- swing in and out of that space. So we believe that they are able to -- to make use of technology to work away from the building. So we have not made any temporary housing arrangements for the a&m personnel.
>> did we offer to let them take a look at the johnny morris satellite office.
>> that's a
>> [indiscernible] site we suggested to ms. Flemming that we should visit and take a look.
>> i would have them look at it. It's big, unused, tied up in litigation. So if we are looking at two to three months, i would -- we can almost guarantee it would be available that long.
>> good point.
>> but in response to your request, seems to me that that would be an appropriate expense, we don't have any problem with it. Don't you think?
>> yes.
>> we would go ahead and do it. I thought they had stopped doing flat roofs like this.
>> i'm sorry?
>> the roof it was flat.
>> the roof has ridges on it and internal ridges. You norks it's -- and in the middle they have a gutter going east-west. But it has ridges coming this way and also this way so when the water coming into the interior -- interior drain, interior drain was clogged so the water start building up on those ridges, you know, to -- to the level that, you know, it's -- that the water cannot -- i mean the light structure, the roof cannot support that heavy water. So it failed in that particular location.
>> but the water was supposed to drain off of it. The picture i saw looks like a flat roof. You are saying in fact there was --
>> it's ridges.
>> there were ridges coming down the middle supposed to drain off and on the side, also.
>> that's right.
>> i have a question.
>> okay.
>> how old is this building?
>> this is in the 70s. So many buildings exactly similar, you know, along these smith road.
>> uh-huh. How long have we owned it?
>> i think through that time.
>> we built it.
>> no, we did not build it. We acquired it.
>> [multiple voices]
>> interior -- interior gutter.
>> on these older buildings like this with challenges on the roof structures, what is our regular maintenance and inspection schedule so that we don't run into a clogged drain situation?
>> i think they do some -- some preventive maintenance and routine, at that time probably i don't know i guess we are investigating this at this time why the clogging happened and all of that stuff because there's -- there's only several trees over there with leaves. I think to plug it that big drain in the middle must block it. It's not only the leaves. Not the leaves. But we are investigating that at this time.
>> do we have any other buildings that have this kind of roof system?
>> no. That's it.
>> do we have a -- a some sort of rotation for checking the integrity of roofs? I know this seems so -- this is perhaps purchase a smaller part of a larger issue with regard to maintenance. Schedule for going around and checking for the integrity of certain things in these buildings.
>> we do have a schedule, maintaining in the building once a month, take care of the roof, if there's any problems on the roof. They clean the gutters. Also, we said that, you know, we have a kind of -- kind of a direction that -- that when it rains, even before it rains, or during the rain, you know, to check the roof, also, because, you know, at that time when it rain we know if there's any plugging and all of that, but that particular thing was internal. It is an internal gutter. So you know right then and --
>> why would you not build a building with this internal gutter system --
>> we -- it's --
>> we'd like the drainage to be on the outside rather than the inside. What happened when you had the internal gutter and the pipes, goes inside the building to the outside. Rather would like to build buildings all the time with the roof, you know, so all of the drainage can go to the outside and from there, you know, can drain.
>> would you say that it's foreseeable that these kind of failures happen with this particular type of design?
>> well, sometimes yes. But it has to be, you know, like -- if the -- if the internal gutter is not clean -- then the passage of the water clean all the time it can hold, it held in the 70s until now. I believe we believe that it was clogged, you know, right there and tried to see what was clog it. To have that, you know, a failure on that.
>> ms. Flemming, did any of the users of the building have any inclination of issues of the roof, the integrity of the tilt wall structure?
>> i think they reported periodic leaks that have been reported through the work order system within facilities management. I imagine he could go back and look at how those issues were resolved. But nothing that would have, you know, given us any reason to expect this type of failure.
>> there's no -- never been this severe of a failure, there have been water intrusion issues. And we've -- we've done a number of remediations.
>> at this location?
>> yes.
>> i have a couple of questions that perhaps -- perhaps i could ask them of mr. Mansour in executive session with regard to our insurance policy.
>> okay. Now, would that be under the consultation with attorney exception?
>> i believe that there -- they are legal questions with regard to the contractual -- contractual nature of our insurance policy. So, yeah, they would be consultation with attorney, but we would need the fact witness of mr. Mansour to -- to i believe answer the legal questions.
>> we'll announce that for executive session then under that exception. Any more open court discussions? Move that we authorize risk management and facilities to work with the extension service staff for appropriate relocation services. And alternate office space and any other relief that would be appropriate to remedy this problem. That's what you are looking for, mr. Mansour.
>> yes.
>> okay.
>> thank you.
>> is there a second.
>> second.
>> discussion of that? We'll still take it into executive session, okay.
>> thank you.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. We may take additional action, too, based on the executive session discussion. Okay? Thank you.
>> thank you. Are you all here on the heat wave item.
>> yes, sir.
>> okay.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, July 6, 2010 2:35 PM
