Question of the Week
SPORTS Soccer team earns No. 4 seed in NCAA tourney, page 7.
Check out lsureveille.com to see what students’ wishes will be on at 11:11 a.m. on 11/11.
THE DAILY REVEILLE Volume 114, Issue 54
WWW.LSUREVEILLE.COM
CRACKING UP
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
WEATHER
BR not expected to feel Ida’s effects By Ryan Buxton Staff Writer
photos by MEGAN J. WILLIAMS and BENJAMIN OLIVER HICKS / The Daily Reveille
[Top left] Audubon Hall’s white lines shows where cracks where repaired. [Top right, bottom] Construction continues on Patrick F. Taylor Hall because of natural settling.
Natural settlement and construction errors cause cosmetic building damage By Adam Duvernay Senior Staff Writer
Italian Renaissance-style architecture distinguishes the campus grounds as one of the University’s outstanding aesthetic features. But many campus buildings show signs of age from more than 80 years of wear. University attendants are constantly challenged with maintenance issues including breaking floors and white lines across campus’s many tan stucco walls caused by settling structures. All buildings move over time, and the damage from this movement depends on the quality of the architecture, soil and the funds available
to maintain the structures. Completed in 1978, Patrick F. Taylor Hall, formerly CEBA, provides one of the most poignant examples of cosmetic deterioration on campus. Paul Favaloro, Office of Facility Services director of facility resources, said Patrick F. Taylor Hall was built without structural expansion joints. Favaloro said the walls and brick floors of Patrick F. Taylor Hall were laid in a solid slab without rubber joints to control movement, causing the floor to bubble and crack over time. As Facility Services repairs those bubbles, Favaloro said rubber joints are added along with new brick
pavers. He said repairs are made as needed, and the introduction of expansion joints helps resolve future problems. Thomas Sofranko, associate dean of the school of architecture, said the expansion is caused in part by the penetration of water into the structure, causing the steel inside to rust and expand. “Everything has got to give a little bit,” Sofranko said. “Like an old instructor of mine said, ‘If you don’t put the joints there, mother nature will put them there for you.’” Sofranko said maintaining these kinds of problems can become a daily battle, often inhibited by lacking resources which have consistently lengthened the University’s deferred
maintenance list. As hundreds of tons of brick and concrete press on the soil during a period of years, uneven structural settlement can also cause cosmetic damage. Khalid Alshibli, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, said Baton Rouge’s proximity to the Mississippi River has made its soil soft and wet. Alshibli said before the levees were built, flooding probably brought in river silt and soft soil layers over many years. “Usually, when you build on soft soil, settlement depends on water being squeezed out over time,” SETTLING, see page 15
Baton Rouge is expected to be partly cloudy today with no chance of rain, sidestepping any significant effects of Tropical Storm Ida. As of print time Monday, the National Weather Service projected minimal wind gusts in Baton Rouge, with only one or two such gusts at tropical storm force and less than an inch of rain in the early morning hours. Ida was expected to make landfall around midnight near Mobile, Ala., said Danielle Manning, National Weather Service meteorologist. Manning said the tropical storm’s winds were forecast to weaken to about 50 knots from 60 before landfall. Areas in Alabama were expected to receive 3 to 6 inches of rain and a relatively small storm surge of 4 to 6 feet, compared to 20 feet for a strong hurricane, Manning said. The University Emergency Operations Center kept a close eye on the storm and open ears to state agencies like the Department of Health and Hospitals and the Department of Social Services, keeping safety as the top priority, said Kristine Calongne, assistant vice chancellor of Public Affairs. No class cancellations had been announced as of press time Monday. Any updates will be posted on LSU’s Web site. Contact Ryan Buxton at rbuxton@lsureveille.com
SERVICE
Projects take students out of classroom By Olga Kourilova Contributing Writer
A typical lab may involve safety glasses and white coats, but biology students in Rebecca Effler’s ecology class donned life jackets and took up paddles for class yesterday morning. Canoeing the University lakes is not completely unusual for these students to learn lab techniques in the field. Ten students paired in canoes and equipped with measuring tape and a GPS
locator paddled to the Bird Refuge in the middle of University Lake to measure duck box dimensions and their distances from land and from the road Monday morning. The wooden boxes sit on top of stilts sticking a few feet out of the shallow lake water and provide a safe nesting area for wood ducks which inhabit the area. The measurements will allow students to compare what dimensions and locations best serve the ducks and protect them from predators. Another section went out later
Monday afternoon, and more will be visiting the peninsula throughout the week. The wood duck project was suggested by a student who saw the boxes around the lakes and became interested in their purpose, said Effler, a biological sciences instructor who teaches the principles of ecology lab. The challenge is planning and obtaining resources for the projects, she said. At the beginning of the semester, SERVICE, see page 15
KRISTEN M’LISSA ROWLETT / The Daily Reveille
[From left] Biology seniors Jesse Beckemeyer, Ericka Johnson, Hannah Rockett and Daniel Noel check a wood duck box Monday during their ecology service learning class.