A car stuck in high water on Hand Avenue. File photo from InkFreeNews.

By David Slone
Times-Union

WARSAW — Engineering analyses will be conducted on the Hand Avenue viaduct and Warsaw City Hall second-story rooftop mezzanine to help find solutions for the flooding and leaking, respectfully, that occur at those locations.

At Monday’s, April 8, Warsaw Board of Public Works and Safety meeting, city engineer Aaron Ott, on behalf of stormwater utility Superintendent Brian Davison, presented a contract with American Structurepoint Inc. for an amount not to exceed $50,400 regarding the Hand Avenue railroad underpass flooding engineering analysis and preliminary engineering report.

“That’s a location that’s clearly been problematic for some time. In my time with the city, I’ve heard it’s just a ‘when the creek is up, it floods.’ I buy that, but it’s flooding when the creek isn’t up, and that’s something that I think we do need to figure out and resolve, and there might even be improvements we can make to limit this and improve the situation even when the creek has rose and we’re fighting that,” Ott said.

The city is having to close the roadway off, he said, “way more frequently than we’ve had to in the past, and I believe it’s time that we get to the bottom of it so we can improve the situation.”

Ott said the engineering analysis will be “very comprehensive.” American Structurepoint will do hydraulic modeling of everything and “run through the hard work to find out what can be done.” He said it’s hoped the city will end up with a list of short-term and long-term projects that can be done to improve the situation.

Larry Hyden, assistant utility manager, said he started with the city in 1993 and the flooding at the viaduct has always been an ongoing problem.

“And it doesn’t just bear with the water. It also bears with the actual roads. So the road itself, the surface gets crumbled down there. (Public Works Superintendent) Dustin (Dillon) has to go back through ‘cause of the freeze-and-thaw and so on and so forth. He’s going to have to resurface that eventually, just due from this water sitting in this roadway over time,” Hyden said.

He said they’ve tried everything they know to do about the flooding.

“We’ve tried multiple different things to correct this issue, and without this study to figure out what is going on and how to correct it, and for the city to move forward, this is what we think needs to happen,” Hyden stated.

Board member George Clemens said several weeks ago, several motorists got stuck in the water at the underpass.

“They’ve been flooded. We’ve had the warning lights on and so on and so forth. They get stuck underneath there. Dustin will go out and put the barricades up, but I think they still try to drive around them, even with the barricades up. It’s one of those things now we need to get corrected if we possibly can,” Hyden replied.

Ott said it’s a location where public safety is at risk sometimes when the underpass is closed. “That makes probably a longer route for our agents to get around to a call on that side of town when that’s closed,” he said.

The board approved the contract with American Structurepoint.

Ott then presented a $7,500 proposal with Garland/DBS Inc. for a water infiltration investigation and testing of the City Hall second-story rooftop mezzanine.

“It’s specifically regarding the portion of the roof that I’m calling the rooftop plaza. We’ve had, from what I’m gather in interviewing everyone around the city, it’s been ever since City Hall was renovated. There’s been a water infiltration problem that rears its head here and there, and we’ve done various things to try and improve it that just have not been successful as of now,” he said.

Ott continued, “We know we have some building envelope issues. There’s water still getting in still, and we were working with (Garland/DBS) to come up with a solution to put a new coating on and fill in all the areas that are letting water in. After they did a pretty thorough visual investigation, they have proposed to us that the only way they can propose a solution that they’re confident in is if we allow them to come in and do this infiltration testing.”

Mayor Jeff Grose said he read the agreement and it looks like they will have a contractor come in and tear part of it apart just to see if they can find where the leaks are.

Ott reiterated that attempts to fix the leak in the past were not successful, but Garland/DBS was confident that “they’re the professionals that can come in and make this happen.”

The contract includes a report of what the problems are and what the company’s proposed solutions are to fix it, including specifications, he said.

The board approved the engineering analysis contract.

“It feels like it’s our best step forward,” Ott said.