Gulf Coast Mississippi School Shelters - Designing A Safe Future 

Release Date: August 26, 2008
Release Number: 1604-672

» More Information on Mississippi Hurricane Katrina

BILOXI, Miss. -- Two Mississippi-based architectural firms have collaborated with numerous local, state and federal representatives from various departments to rebuild and upgrade three unique Mississippi schools.

After winning the bid on the new schools, the architects have designed halls that will not only shape
the minds of tomorrow's leaders but may provide shelter for them and their parents in the event of another storm.

The joint venture of JBHM Architects and Guild Hardy Architects offers other new schools under construction across the country a blueprint for success. Upon completion, West Harrison, D'Iberville and St. Martin High Schools will serve as school shelters for their local communities.

"This is a good example of the successful integration of the FEMA 361 Community Shelter Guidelines into the architectural design of state of the art educational facilities," said David Hardy of Guild Hardy Architects and lead architect of D'Iberville, West Harrison and St. Martin High Schools. "99 percent of the time, the facility will be a school. The other time it will be a shelter."

The upgraded school shelters are Partnered Mitigation Projects (PMP), which use federal funds to repair or replace public facilities while making them stronger. The schools will be funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Public Assistance (PA) program and Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP).

"It's truly a collaborative effort on all fronts, across the board. All of the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency MEMA and FEMA personnel we worked with made this process a lot smoother," said Hardy. "You have to put a lot of faith in the process; faith that projects will be approved, will move forward, and will be reimbursed. Having good communication with your MEMA and FEMA representatives is the key to building faith in the process and assuring project success. It has been my experience that the representatives at the local Transitional Recovery Office have been very accommodating in this process."

Just inside D'Iberville's grand atrium entrance is a line of demarcation etched in the floor indicating where the shelter area begins. Two entry points will make the facility accessible to the general population. A sign, labeling the school as a designated shelter, will be visible from the roadway and additional campus and building signage will guide occupants to the shelter entry.

Harrison County School District Superintendent Henry Arledge knows a few things about school shelters. Immediately before Hurricane Katrina's landfall, Arledge opened 15 of his schools as shelters, protecting approximately 3,000 to 4,000 residents.

"I think this will be a benefit to the community," said Arledge. "D'Iberville should open by the first of January 2009; West Harrison should open in August 2009. We should be ready as far as shelters and schools by the next hurricane season."

Harrison County Emergency Manager Rupert Lacy also looks forward to the opening of the D'Iberville and West Harrison schools. "Every shelter that we used of course came through Katrina. The only problem was that most of the buildings we used were constructed pre-1980. Our buildings were not designed for high-wind type storms," said Lacy. "We know these facilities will become primary shelters. They're being built to that higher standard. They will double our sheltering numbers. We can tabulate approximately 8,000 more slots in addition to the other shelters we have."

D'Iberville High School's finished elevation will be well out of federally-established flood zones at an elevation of 92.5 feet above sea level. Reinforced, twelve-inch thick concrete walls and concrete plank roof panels are the basis of ensuring compliance with the FEMA 361 Community Shelter Guidelines.

The school's windows are impact-rated for large and small wind-borne debris, capable of bearing a wind load of 200 miles per hour. The doors are constructed from heavy gauge steel and have a structural, rather than hollow, inside. A special Notification of Acceptance from the Miami-Dade County Building Code Compliance Office was given to all of the shelter's windows, doors and louvers.

"Only two places in the country offer this level of approval – Miami-Dade and Texas Tech University," said Hardy.

The roof was constructed in layers through various methods. The base roof system has a concrete topping with a roof membrane mechanically fastened to the topping. The mechanical fastening offers better resistance to uplift. The second roof membrane is fully adhered on top of this system over tapered insulation. The roof parapet is literally anchored down with three-quarter inch bolts spaced 12 inches apart around the entire perimeter of the roof's edge.

"If the first roof fails, then you have another to keep water from coming in," said Hardy. "The weight of the roof is engineered to be strong enough to resist the uplift during a severe weather event – up to 200 miles per hour winds."

Aside from the hardened walls, projectile-proof windows and dual roof system, the shelter will also have standby generators and an independent utility infrastructure, including on site wastewater treatment, water well and storage tank.

"We know we'll have the generators on site, which will alleviate the problems we had after Katrina," said Lacy. "Septic tanks will alleviate the sanitation issues we had after the storm."

The facility also features all-mechanical dampers. A built-in barometric pressure system in the shelter will close the dampers in the event of a storm to prevent a breach of the building. The final product will truly be state-of-the-art.

Hardy, a renowned Mississippi architect, takes particular pride in this project. He graduated with D'Iberville High School's Class of 1983.

"We designed the school as a 100 year building," said Hardy. "The materials we're using will stand the test of time and will serve the community for the long run."

New athletic fields are also being built behind the school. FEMA PA funds will pay for the new combined baseball and softball concessions and scoring tower building. The finished athletic areas will have a girls' softball field, a baseball field, rest rooms, a scoring tower, a football field, a field house with its own indoor batting cage and practice facility, and a separate band practice field.

"We've used every square foot of available space on the D'Iberville site. We're almost running out of room," said Hardy with a smile.

From a technology standpoint, the prototype for the new St. Martin High School in Jackson County is D'Iberville High School. Thanks to what they've learned here, Hardy believes builders will be able to incorporate shelter design techniques at a much more rapid pace with the St. Martin project.

Katrina destroyed many schools across the coast. In a special twist of fate, the fourth through seventh graders who lost St. Martin Middle School will be the first four graduating classes of the new St. Martin High School, scheduled to open in August 2010. The school is the third PMP in Mississippi since recovery efforts started. Nearly $43 million in FEMA funding has been obligated for the project.

According to architect Hardy, St. Martin will be the largest in the region at 183,000 square feet and capable of accommodating 1,500 students.

Fast Facts (provided by Guild Hardy Architects)

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Last Modified: Tuesday, 26-Aug-2008 14:48:47