WEBVTT 00:00:08.400 --> 00:00:14.639 It is now April of 2018 which means it's almost exactly two and a half years 00:00:14.639 --> 00:00:19.430 since the flood happened in October of 00:00:20.300 --> 00:00:23.369 People often ask why is it taking so long 00:00:23.369 --> 00:00:27.150 why isn't Scotty's Castle back open and I think part of why people ask that 00:00:27.150 --> 00:00:32.399 question is they don't understand the magnitude of what happened here and the 00:00:32.399 --> 00:00:37.920 back story the back research that we have to do in order to figure out what 00:00:37.920 --> 00:00:42.120 our plans are then find the money and then move forward with the construction work. 00:00:51.780 --> 00:00:55.400 One of the first things we had to do after the flood happened was we removed 00:00:55.409 --> 00:01:00.659 the flood debris. We brought in crews of people's who dug out the mud from within 00:01:00.659 --> 00:01:05.580 the buildings and within five feet outside them and I'm standing in front 00:01:05.580 --> 00:01:09.689 of one of the piles of debris that they dug out from inside the buildings. 00:01:09.689 --> 00:01:12.380 That was the first four or five months worth of work here. 00:01:13.560 --> 00:01:14.820 While we were digging mud 00:01:15.020 --> 00:01:19.280 out of the buildings and out of the swimming pool we were also doing initial 00:01:19.280 --> 00:01:23.540 assessments to find out what damage happened during the storm event. 00:01:23.549 --> 00:01:28.520 Some of the damage was obvious such as a wall pushed off a foundation and other damage 00:01:28.530 --> 00:01:32.909 that was pretty readily apparent was water that got into Johnson's office 00:01:32.909 --> 00:01:36.020 which is one of the locations that we store archives for the site. 00:01:37.480 --> 00:01:43.280 That damage was somewhat obvious but the part that wasn't obvious was what caused the 00:01:43.280 --> 00:01:47.280 damage where is this water leak coming from how do we stop it from leaking in 00:01:47.300 --> 00:01:49.240 the next storm event. 00:01:51.020 --> 00:01:52.800 We're now on the upstairs screen porch 00:01:52.810 --> 00:01:58.750 and we investigated this by running a hose onto the porch and we expected the 00:01:58.750 --> 00:02:02.170 water to go into the corner on that side of the building but instead what we 00:02:02.170 --> 00:02:05.830 found was it was running down a short flight of stairs making a curve 00:02:05.830 --> 00:02:10.509 and going right in underneath that flight of stairs through a opening we 00:02:10.509 --> 00:02:15.790 didn't even see it was masked by some of the screening that was originally in 00:02:15.790 --> 00:02:20.490 front of this flight of stairs and then you can see when we took that screen off 00:02:20.490 --> 00:02:23.950 a massive hole though we found that was never finished letting 00:02:23.950 --> 00:02:27.140 large amounts of rainwater down into the castle. 00:02:30.880 --> 00:02:34.440 One of the benefits, or you could almost think of it as a silver lining 00:02:34.460 --> 00:02:36.440 of this disaster of the flood is 00:02:36.580 --> 00:02:41.459 that we're doing work on buildings that have needed it for a very long time. 00:02:41.459 --> 00:02:45.730 Deferred maintenance is the term for a work that has been delayed due to 00:02:45.730 --> 00:02:50.020 funding or other reasons and right here you've got a great example of it. 00:02:50.020 --> 00:02:53.950 These support posts here in the historic garage the visitor center they don't 00:02:53.950 --> 00:02:58.239 even touch the ground this is due to a combination of long-term water damage 00:02:58.239 --> 00:03:03.040 and termite damage when we repair this exterior and interior stucco we're going 00:03:03.040 --> 00:03:07.030 to have that surface off and will be a chance to add sistering to add 00:03:07.030 --> 00:03:11.080 structural support to this damage and hopefully keep this building around for 00:03:11.080 --> 00:03:12.280 generations. 00:03:15.460 --> 00:03:21.550 Another part of our investigation was to figure out how to repair the road the 00:03:21.550 --> 00:03:26.530 damage was obvious but what we didn't realize at first was that the flood 00:03:26.530 --> 00:03:30.670 changed the hydrologic path that future water is going to take coming down the 00:03:30.670 --> 00:03:34.660 canyon which means the engineers need to put the flood control structures in 00:03:34.660 --> 00:03:36.560 different places than they were before. 00:03:39.920 --> 00:03:44.200 Once we received the designs from the architects and engineers on all of the 00:03:44.200 --> 00:03:48.250 projects here at Scotty's Castle the next step was to consult to make sure 00:03:48.250 --> 00:03:51.740 that those designs are the best possible plan of action. 00:03:53.800 --> 00:03:57.560 One example of a potentially controversial plan is here in this 00:03:57.570 --> 00:04:02.280 breezeway we're between the historic long shed and the historic garage. 00:04:02.280 --> 00:04:06.240 This 3 foot opening created a dam when flood debris pushed up against it 00:04:06.240 --> 00:04:09.360 backing up water so it had enough pressure that eventually the water 00:04:09.360 --> 00:04:13.590 pushed the wall off the foundation it also broke through the windows and a few 00:04:13.590 --> 00:04:17.370 parts of this building and in one room had enough force after breaking through 00:04:17.370 --> 00:04:22.079 the window that it punched out the wall on the other side of that same room. 00:04:22.079 --> 00:04:26.151 Our plan is to open this breezeway to be 14 feet wide. 00:04:26.151 --> 00:04:28.260 What that will do is mean that 00:04:28.260 --> 00:04:32.640 as future floods come around the side of this building they'll have an easy exit 00:04:32.640 --> 00:04:38.070 without being backed up and forced into the historic structure causing damage to that. 00:04:38.070 --> 00:04:43.380 However the trade-off is this building originally had only a 00:04:43.380 --> 00:04:47.460 three-foot opening in this place and we're proposing to widen it to 14 feet 00:04:47.460 --> 00:04:52.110 that's a very significant change to the historic structure and those trade-offs 00:04:52.110 --> 00:04:57.020 are what we need help from others to verify that we're making the right decision. 00:05:04.660 --> 00:05:09.520 The law requires us to consult with the public as well as with federal and state 00:05:09.520 --> 00:05:14.320 agencies and tribes about the work that we plan to do here. One of the ways we 00:05:14.320 --> 00:05:17.170 consult with the public is through social media by posting things on 00:05:17.170 --> 00:05:21.580 Facebook and on our website we also hold public meetings where the public can ask 00:05:21.580 --> 00:05:24.970 us questions and give us their input directly and that is extremely valuable to us. 00:05:24.970 --> 00:05:30.730 Sometimes when you're in a project so deep you can't see the big picture 00:05:30.730 --> 00:05:33.860 and the public really helps us see the big picture. 00:05:36.600 --> 00:05:40.980 We're now two and a half years since the flood and even though looking around it 00:05:40.990 --> 00:05:45.099 looks like not much work has happened since the road work hasn't started the 00:05:45.099 --> 00:05:49.210 repairs on the garage the visitor center haven't started yet we're actually about 00:05:49.210 --> 00:05:54.280 50% done with our timeline. We're nearly at the approval stage we are almost 00:05:54.280 --> 00:06:00.009 ready to move forward and obligate the money to contracts to start construction 00:06:00.009 --> 00:06:07.340 work in fall of 2018. What that will mean is opening to the public in 2020. 00:06:07.380 --> 00:06:10.040 Five years may sound like a long time 00:06:10.040 --> 00:06:12.780 but when you're taking care of such a special and 00:06:12.780 --> 00:06:18.260 unique historic place as this it's much better to do it right than to do it fast.