Wind Damage Likely Will Not Delay Williamstown Fire Station Project
The trusses will be evaluated for repair and reuse but that work is not expected to affect the timeline or cost.
On Thursday morning, the district's construction consultant said the project's construction manager has a plan to resequence the schedule to make up for the time it needs to reconstruct wooden trusses knocked down by the wind over the weekend.
Bruce Decoteau, a retired senior project manager from Williams College, has been advising the Prudential Committee, which oversees the fire district, since the outset of the $22.5 million building project.
Decoteau said there are no cameras on site that recorded the damage, but the best guess from construction manager Consigli Construction is that the damage occurred at some time on Sunday evening.
According to the National Weather Service, the average wind speed in Bennington, Vt., the closest data point, was 15.1 mph with the highest recorded gust at 46 mph as of 4:43 Sunday afternoon.
"I got a photo early Monday morning advising me they had blown over," Decoteau said on Thursday.
Decoteau said the damage should have minimal or no impact on the project timeline, which currently has the Fire Department moving into the Main Street station at the end of the calendar year.
"What they'll do is pour the second-floor deck prior to installing the rest of the trusses," Decoteau said. "[Consigli] had it sequenced the other way around. This will allow them to keep the trades working and recover most of the time.
"You can't have people working underneath the trusses [pouring concrete] while you're setting them."
Decoteau said the town's building inspector told the contractor to have a structural engineer check out the steel structure below the trusses to make sure the collapse did not impact any of the metalwork, and the engineer confirmed that there was no effect.
"Everything is fine to go, and he sent a letter to Ryan [Contenta] stating accordingly," Decoteau said. "That allows us to get the crane on site and move the trusses to the ground."
The wooden trusses will be evaluated to see how much can be repaired and reused and how much needs to be replaced. Decoteau said based on observations from the ground, most of the wood should be usable.
As for the cost of repairs from the storm, that expense will be borne by the subcontractor who installed the trusses, Decoteau said.
"There will be no financial impact to the Williamstown Fire District or the Williamstown taxpayers," he said.
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