Flooding in Aberdeen

Following a nine inch one-day rainfall in 2007, the City of Aberdeen was declared a national disaster as hundreds of properties were damaged or destroyed during the flooding. The City of Aberdeen performed inspections of residential properties to determine if buildings were safe for occupancy. The city identified three categories during their preliminary screening of properties: Safe As-Is, Condemned (could become occupied with corrective measures) and Condemned Uninhabitable.

Structural Evaluations

Clark Engineering was procured to further evaluate the structural integrity of nearly 200 residential properties over a three-week period. Clark served as an extension of the City of Aberdeen’s staff and brought professional structural engineering expertise and years of experience in dealing with a wide variety of disasters to the aid of the city. Clark Engineering applied generally accepted national evaluation standards and other techniques in the review of each of the structures.

Resources for the Future

Clark Engineering developed a property identification catalog system that could be easily cross-referenced by the property code, the property address or owner’s name. Clark then provided written and photographic documentation for each individual structure that was evaluated and served as a resource for the city long after site observations were completed..