Firefighter Jason Douglas / Clark County Public Information Office via AP
This image provided by the Clark County, Nev., Public Information Office shows flood damage, Monday, Aug. 21, 2023, outside Lundy Elementary School in the Old Town section of Mount Charleston near Las Vegas.
Thursday, June 20, 2024 | 2 a.m.
The flooding that walloped Mount Charleston last summer carved out an 11-foot-deep crater in the parking lot of the Earl B. Lundy Elementary School, threatening the building’s foundation and destroying its septic system, according to engineers who inspected the property after the storm.
These and other findings are why the Clark County School District recommends closing the two-room schoolhouse, which opened in 1966 as the Mount Charleston Elementary School, rather than spend millions of dollars on its repair. District staff will present the report on the school’s condition today to the bond oversight committee, which confers with administrative staff and advises the school board on planning and funding school development. The board is scheduled to vote next week on whether to close the campus.
CCSD commissioned a series of inspections of the school immediately after Tropical Storm Hilary swept through Southern Nevada last August. Roaring flash floods destroyed roads and trails along Mount Charleston and knocked out other critical infrastructure.
The site assessment does not include any cost estimates but, over 113 pages, details architectural and civil, structural, mechanical, plumbing, electrical and geotechnical engineering conditions on the campus.
The document, which the Sun received through a public records request, details the damages. They include:
Building stability: The most visible destruction happened to the parking lot and, in turn, threatened the school’s foundation. Runoff eroded away the lot at the southeast corner of the school, wearing a “scour hole” about 75 feet wide and up to 11 feet deep, according to civil engineers from the firm Wood Rogers. The engineers, who first visited on Aug. 29, 2023, noted that material had been washed out from beneath the foundation.
“The scour hole has the potential to jeopardize the stability of the school,” their report said.
The district addressed this by placing boulders in the hole, then shoring it up by packing in a temporary fill in September. The backfill is lower strength than regular concrete.
“(F)urther action will be required for an effective long-term repair,” a report from the geotechnical engineering firm GeoTek read. “It is likely that the foundation has already experienced movement. If further action is not taken beyond the temporary shoring it should be anticipated that the foundation will continue to settle over time as loose soil and debris may be left under the foundation before the placement” of the temporary fill.
CCSD paid about $121,000 for the temporary fill, according to a notification the school board received alerting members of the emergency expense.
Septic and plumbing system: The school’s 1,000-gallon septic tank and drain field were beneath the ruined parking lot. The civil engineers concluded the septic tank and drain field were also destroyed and that sewer lines may have also been washed away.
Drainage channel: Historically, storm runoff was routed along the southern boundary of the 2.5-acre school site with an earthen channel. Hilary bypassed the existing drainage and created a new ditch farther south. Wood Rogers recommended abandoning the previous channel and building out the new one by cleaning out debris, defining its lines and lining it with stones to mitigate future erosion.
Propane tanks: Rushing water undermined the concrete pad south of the school that supported large tanks that held propane used to heat the building. Wood Rogers recommended relocating the propane tanks to the north side of the school outside of the path of future storm runoff to prevent another flood from dislodging the tanks. Dislodging propane tanks creates a fire hazard.
HVAC: Rushing water washed away a ground-mounted heating, ventilation and air conditioning unit that weighed about one and a half tons, leaving behind broken, open ductwork.
Electrical: Conduits on the main electrical panel may have been flooded, engineers reports said. The backup generator was apparently not damaged, but conduits had been displaced and new wiring would be needed.
Additions: Inspectors from Ethos Three Architecture noted that a small addition that housed a kiln for firing pottery was ripped from the main structure, and its concrete floor dangled over the massive hole that was the parking lot. Two layers of foundation beneath an adjacent storage room addition were exposed and undermined.
Entryway exterior: The southwest entrance needs new exterior paving, ramps and handrails, Ethos Three said.
Interior water damage: A photo in the report of muddy floors just inside the southwest entry doors suggested water encroachment. Ethos Three recommended replacing about 1,000 square feet of damaged carpet and vinyl flooring.
The district has estimated that repairs would cost between $3.5 million and $6 million; a CCSD spokesman clarified that repairs on the grounds but not within the building itself are excluded from insurance coverage and make up the $3.5 million by themselves.
According to a presentation given at a meeting June 7 at Indian Springs Elementary School, CCSD wouldn’t begin to repair or rebuild Lundy until 2025, dependent on snowfall. However, CCSD recommends permanently assigning Lundy students to Indian Springs, where they had been bused all last year post-storm. Lundy and Indian Springs are about 40 miles apart.
Lundy was one of the smallest schools in the state in the 2022-23 school year, with between 11 and 13 students, according to Nevada Department of Education enrollment data. Nevertheless, an online petition asking CCSD to fund the repairs and keep the school open, has been signed by more than 800 supporters since it was launched May 15.
The school board is scheduled to vote on Lundy’s closure at its June 27 meeting.
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