Kids at École Armstrong Elementary will take turns moving into portables for a few months this fall to facilitate a $6.7-million seismic upgrade to their high-risk school.
When B.C. schools were first studied for seismic risk in 2004, the East Burnaby school was at first deemed a moderate risk during an earthquake, but its risk rating was upped to high 1 in 2014 because of its gymnasium block, which is deemed “at highest risk of widespread damage or structural failure” during a quake, according to the province’s risk-rating scale.
On May 17, the province announced it had approved the 400-student school for a $6.7-million seismic upgrade.
The highest-risk area, the 1955 gym, and other common areas will be worked on first, according to school district director of facilities Cory Borg.
“The gym is the main area because it’s a higher structure, and so anchoring the roof onto the gymnasium is the main one. In an earthquake, in a seismic activity, the walls shake back and forth, and the roof is the thing that’s at risk, so they need to basically strap it down and go through the walls, right into the footings of the ground.”
Borg said the district hopes to have five portables on site, so several classes at a time can be moved into them during construction.
“Some will take longer,” Borg said. “We’re trying to group them appropriately, but we don’t expect they’ll be in there any longer than two months, but a lot of it’s weather dependent.”
Unlike a $3.3-million seismic upgrade at Montecito Elementary School that will see the addition of four extra classrooms to replace three portables, Armstrong will not get any new classrooms or other extra space as part of its project.
Work on Armstrong is expected to be finished in winter 2019.
Eight of the 23 Burnaby schools in the province’s seismic mitigation program have been upgraded.
Two schools – Alpha Secondary and Montecito Elementary – are under construction, and four are in the business-case development stage.
