Natural Hazards Mitigation for South Carolina Schools
Columbia, South Carolina

Services:

• Engineering evaluation
• Strengthening designs
• Co-authored report and workshop 

Tasks:

• Structural evaluation for earthquake and wind related safety risks
• Hazard mitigation
• Training workshop for facility manager

Project Description:

Lindbergh & Associates is a leader in developing natural hazard mitigation tools, educational workshops and materials, and life-safety risk evaluations and inspections of South Carolina Schools. L&A developed a series of checklists for school facility managers, local engineers, and architects who design for school districts. The checklists were developed to assist in identifying a building’s vulnerability to damage from flood, wind or seismic hazards.

In evaluating the new checklist system, three schools considered typical of South Carolina schools, Latta High School, Conway High School, and Mullins High School, were inspected using the new checklists. With the new data collected, a list of building deficiencies was developed as well as preliminary cost information on each deficiency. The preliminary concepts and estimates were developed into a report from which the South Carolina Department of Education selected issues that should be addressed for each school. Hazard mitigation techniques were developed  to correct each deficiency for further development into construction drawings.

To identify earthquake and wind related life-safety risks, a structural evaluation was conducted of Conway High School in Conway, South Carolina.  In order to mitigate the risks, this project included tasks such as:

• Defining Life-safety risks 
• Analyzing structural strengthening schemes 
• Evaluating cost estimates

The level of mitigation depended on the performance objectives established by the school administration and the selected scheme was incorporated into the preliminary design. The evaluation and design were conducted as outlined in the new draft wind and seismic school design provisions developed by L&A for the South Carolina Department of Education.

L&A conducted a two-day workshop in Columbia, South Carolina to train facility managers, engineers, and architects. The workshop instructed on topics such as:

• The use of the hazard identification and evaluation checklists
• How to strengthen design provided by the new draft seismic and wind school design provisions.

A portion of the workshop was a hands-on field exercise to allow the participants to practice applying the methodology instructed in the workshop.