Repairs on Coal City Intermediate School could cost up to $1 million

Coal City Unit 1 Superintendent Chris Spencer told the school board last Wednesday that construction could cost up to $1 million to repair damage to the roof and north wall in Coal City Intermediate School’s north gym.

Spencer said the district doesn’t know for sure, and the $1 million is a preliminary number. He said getting the process going, as in having an abatement to reduce the danger put in will cost between $150,000 and $250,000.

“We’re working with the architects to get us some designs we can bring to the board with some estimates to determine the next steps,” Spencer said.

Spencer said the district is working with Performance Solutions.

“The main thing is we got the students out and the staff out safe,” Spencer said. “Shoring up that north wall and then taking care of those trusses and getting it shored up so hopefully nothing happens. Again, the likelihood of this happening is unusual, but those trusses breaking put that pressure out to the north is one of the reasons that wall is cracking and starting to fall.”

Jason Smith, the district’s Chief School Business Officer, said a storm came through town in July and several trees were downed on campus. The belief right now is that the wind event exacerbated the stress on the trust and the barrel roof, which caused the failure. Smith said the district does have a claim started with their insurance company, which should mitigate the costs associated with the repairs.

“Because of the age of the trusses, there very well may have been indicators in those trusses that the wind exacerbated it, but that’s what we believe caused the ultimate failure of that truss,” Smith said. “At least the one on the north end of its face. About 30 days latter when we saw the cracking of the north wall as I explained last week, right at this faux strap, the bottom of this truss when it holds the tension, that’s what keeps the bow in place. Once that tension is lost, the bow falls, and that pressure causes force on the top of the wall to the north lateral with respect to where the truss lays because the wall was the biggest part in that system.”

Structural engineers reviewed it and put straps on to mitigate the issue because they were originally looking at it as a wall failure issue.