Southside Rises Again: Plans for a New Barn at Zoar

Among Tropical Storm Irene's many impacts on our business this past fall was that it washed away the barn where we stored rafting equipment such as PFDs (life jackets), helmets, paddles, pumps, throw ropes, generators and all the miscellaneous gear that goes along with our rafting operations. The barn was already a second-generation building, having been rebuilt in the 1970s after it had burned down (its original purpose was to store propane tanks). The previous owner had warned us to keep the swale near the river clear, since it carried much of the flow of the river in high water, preventing damage to the building. Despite the swale being clear, however, the flooding from Irene reached record levels and overwhelmed both the swale and building itself.

Our amateur forensic analysis of the cause of the building collapse is that the floodwaters, which were about 3 feet over the level of the floor of the building, floated the barn off its piers. The evidence: there was only one nail in the top of each pier! Not much to hold down a building of any size and certainly not in conformance with current building codes.

So, given that the weather appears to be getting more extreme, and in order to meet more stringent modern rules, we have had an engineer design the replacement building on the same footprint as the old one (it's non-conforming, so we can't expand, just replace). The new raft barn will be designed so that guests can come in, get their gear, and exit in a smooth traffic pattern. With the old barn, we had to hang PFDs outside on a drying line before putting them back on their storage racks, but with the new design, we’ll only need to move PFDs once. In order to dry the gear as well as possible, the new barn will have louvers in two walls and doors at each end that can be opened while a large fan blows air over them. It will also be a nicer looking structure with wooden siding and a fancy new metal roof.

At the beginning of the season, we certainly didn’t imagine we’d be rebuilding the barn. The silver lining is that we'll end up with a more functional, attractive building which should withstand even a flood as large as Irene!

Designs for the new barn:

Front View	Side View

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Southside Rises Again: Plans for a New Barn at Zoar