Members of the Utah Seismic Safety Commission unanimously agreed that the Marriott Library could be a death trap in the event of an earthquake.
They voted on Friday to support the U’s request to the state Legislature for $45 million to reinforce the library.
Although the U has requested the money for the last three years, this is the first time they’ve been backed by the commission.
“We feel the Marriott Library represents a very large life safety threat,” commission chairman Barry Welliver said.
The commission’s decision came after library Director Sarah Michalak joined forces with engineer Terry Brown and other specialists to present findings on the building’s safety risk.
Using a power point presentation, Michalak showed the commission that even a moderate earthquake-measuring 6.0 or less-could result in the collapse of the library’s concrete floors and the destruction of everything below.
One inch of horizontal motion could cause the “joints to snap and the top floor to come down and pancake all the other floors,” said Nancy Lyon, assistant vice president for government affairs.
The exterior panels on the outside of sections of the library weigh more than10 tons each. “The panels are a hazard in and of themselves,” Lyon said.
According to Lyon, the building is “constructed with concrete slab floors which sit on flexible steel beams. [The library] would be great if we lived in a place like Kansas. But, as you know, we’re sitting on a fault.”
The library is less than a mile from the Wasatch fault. According to Lyon, an earthquake could result in the deaths of the thousands of students who visit the library on a daily basis.
The library recorded more than 9,500 visitors on one day alone in December. And that’s not counting the several hundred employees who work there, Lyon said.
The library is also home to rare and one-of-a-kind books and documents–their value estimated at over $300 million.
If the Legislature agrees to fund the project, the goal of the first year will be to install exterior braces around the library. Next would be to reinforce the ceilings and the floors. The project is estimated to take more than three years to complete.
Students will receive more than just peace of mind concerning their safety, however. Lyon said the plans include adding “information commons,” in which students will have better access to computers and to librarians. “We’ll literally tear the library back to bare bones,” Lyon said, which provides an “opportunity to reconfigure the space and make it more workable and add technology for students.”
Administrators plan to keep the library open during all phases of construction. A book warehouse will be constructed to house the books and students will be able to continue accessing computers.
In fact, the original goal of Director Sarah Michalak was to “make the library a library of the future,” according to Lyon. Lyon said the plan was to make the old and the new sections of the library “flow,” and to redesign the space to make technology more accessible to students. But after engineers discovered the safety risk the library posed, the priority became clear. Michalak hopes legislators can find a way to fund the project. Commission chairperson Welliver agrees.
“The bottom line is that this is an issue of high priority in terms of life safety,” he said.
