Previous Shop Talk: Buying Locally in N.Y., Chilling Water and Earning Gold in Ill. |
Next |
June 26, 2008, 12:25 PM ET
U. of Iowa Administrator Asks: How Vulnerable Are Your Utilities?
The Chronicle recently caught a moment with Donald J. Guckert, associate vice president and director of facilities management at the University of Iowa, as he worked to dry out his campus and get things running again. He had a few thoughts for Chronicle readers about preparing for disasters.
“We tend to think about the campus in terms of buildings, but it is the utility system that has left us with the greatest challenges,” he said. Campus buildings are connected by a network of utility tunnels. During a flood in 1993, those tunnels took on water and contributed to the flooding of buildings. Now they are inundated, as is the university’s power plant.
Only a sixth of the campus flooded this time around. “But everything is connected by a power plant that is on the river,” Mr. Guckert says. “Our biggest challenge coming out of this is heating the campus in the winter, because of the damage to our steam distribution and power plant in the flood. We’re going to do everything we can to get it up, because otherwise we are dependent on temporary boilers to get us through a tough Iowa winter.”
Colleges should think broadly about their risks, he says — and not forget the utility angle. “How vulnerable are you from your utility standpoint, from your tunnels?” he says. “What would you do if you lost that? Something we’re thinking about right now is, Do we abandon our tunnels and direct-bury our utilities? Yeah, it’s harder to service and repair and maintain, but it is more hardened against the threats of flooding.” —Scott Carlson
Add Your Comment
Commenting is closed.