[Rhodes22-list] Major Ice Damage

[Steve Alm]

Roger,

Whew!  Nasty!  I would argue that this is not flood damage per se. The
carnage here was not caused by high water. Flood waters alone would not have
caused this. I'd say an ice floe is more like a passing storm that damages
your roof.    

But I trust that with your new mechanical engineering degree you'll have
gained the extra knowledge to rebuild it even better than before and you'll
get even more years out of the new one.  21 years ain't bad, my friend.
But, dammit, you'll still have to do the work!

Awfully sorry and good luck!
Slim



On 3/6/04 4:48 PM, "Roger Pihlaja" <cen09402 at centurytel.net> wrote:

> Hi Everybody,
> 
> Midland County, MI is under a flood warning due to the warm temperatures &
> heavy rains the last couple of days.  Sanford Lake rose about 3 feet in 5
> hours today!  My neighbor said he saw the the ice floe that caused the damage
> to our docks & boat lifts in the attached photos.  It was about 100 yards X 50
> yards & being pushed along by a 4-5 knot current!  He said this massive ice
> floe didn't even slow down when it tore thru his pier & boat lift & my wharf &
> pier.  The sound accompanying this event was also quite impressive!  I
> designed & built this wharf & pier in the summer of 1983, using ice
> engineering procedures from the Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering.  So, it
> was nearly 21 years old & has never given a bit of trouble to this point.  The
> pilings were sunk 4 feet into the mud bottom in 300 lbs of concrete each and
> the pilings were X-braced with thru-bolted steel U-channel in both the E-W as
> well as the N-S directions.
> 
> As luck would have it, I happened to take some pictures down by the lake about
> 1 month ago on Feb. 7, 2004 because of the unusually heavy snowfall we had
> this winter.  I've included these shots as "before" photos & then included the
> shots taken today from roughly the same location & angle for comparison.  If
> you look closely at the photos taken on 02/07/2004, you will be able to see
> some of the X-braced thru-bolted steel reinforcing structure on the pilings on
> the piers, because the lake level was very low this winter.
> 
> If you look closely at the "after" photos, you will see the 4 pilings are
> still intact on the pier.  These pilings either sheared off at the lake bottom
> or perhaps the ice floe pushed them, cement & all thru the bottom to their
> present location.  If so, I may have 4 rather large trenches in the lake
> bottom!  In any case, when the water warms up, I will have a major project
> this spring and summer.  Just clearing away the debris will be a nontrivial
> task.
> 
> I haven't been able to contact my homeowner's insurance agent, so I don't know
> if my homeowner's insurance covers this sort of damage.  We don't have flood
> insurance, so my expectation is we don't have any coverage.  But, we'll see
> what our agent says.
> 
> 
> 
> Figure 1: Stairs & Pier Looking South On 02/07/2004
> 
> 
> 
> Figure 2: Stairs & Wrecked Pier Looking South On 03/06/2004
> 
> 
> 
> Figure 3: Stairs & Pier Looking NE On 02/07/2004
> 
> 
> 
> Figure 4: Stairs & Wrecked Pier Looking NE On 03/06/2004
> 
> 
> 
> Figure 5: Wrecked Wharf & Wrecked Harper's Pier & Boat Lift Looking North On
> 03/06/2004
> 
> 
> 
> Figure 6: Wrecked Wharf & Pier Looking South From Harper's Stairs On
> 03/06/2004
> 
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