Published: May 22, 2009 10:00 pm      

Flood damage forces changes in McHale schedule

Replacing floor and equipment will cost at least $75,000

Damage by last weekend’s flooding at McHale Performing Arts Center could reach $100,000 by the time the damage is fully assessed.

Facility manager Ken Fraza reported Friday the entire 88-by-48-foot stage floor needed to be replaced and that an upright Steinway piano had been declared a total loss. The cost to replace those two items alone is $75,000.

“Thank goodness for insurance,” Fraza said. “It’s paying for all of this. It’s going to be $75,000 with the piano and floor. I wouldn’t be surprised if it approaches $100,000.

“The insurance adjuster is here, but hasn’t totaled it yet. The stage curtains need to be cleaned and re-fireproofed and there are smaller items that we lost that were in the orchestra pit.”

Two events scheduled for next weekend, a Southern gospel concert Saturday and Sunday’s Upward Football awards program, have been canceled. Civic Players of Logansport is moving its musical into July, and a third event, Kristie Wright’s School of Dance recital set for June 27, will go on if the floor can be replaced in time.

“Larry Pierce of the Sonshine Boys Quartet is attempting to find another venue for their concert,” said Fraza, who has worked at McHale for 32 years.

The stage floor sits on “sleepers,” or two-by-fours that run perpendicular to the stage floor. Between the two-by-fours, he explained, is fiberglass insulation that improves the center’s acoustics.

“That insulation is totally soaked and would take years for it to dry completely. We have to rip up the floor, throw all of that out and put in a totally new floor,” Fraza said.

The hope is that the sleepers, which sit on a concrete subfloor, will be OK and dry, but that won’t be known until the tongue-and-groove maple floor has been removed.

“The sad part is we just put in this particular floor six years ago,” Fraza said. “Our other floor lasted 20-some years.”

Contractors will begin removing the stage floor June 3 and hope to begin laying the new floor June 8. Replacing the floor will take three weeks. McHale officials would like to use fir rather than maple.

“We hope it will be available quickly enough to get it done, laid, stained and painted in a three-week period,” Fraza said. “By the first of the week we should know if it is back ordered or if there is not enough available. Then, we’ll have to either switch wood or cancel Kristie Wright.”

The recital is to be the first in Logansport for the dance group in five years. Its recitals are normally at Havens Auditorium at Indiana University Kokomo, but the group decided to hold a recital here due to the number of students in Logansport.

The upright piano was in the orchestra pit, which was submerged in nearly four feet of water.

“It is a $22,000 casualty,” Fraza said. “I knew it would probably get totaled and it did. The piano had actually fallen over and was completely submerged for 10 hours.

“Every key is frozen because the wood is so swollen. It’s sad to see a fine instrument like that.”

In order to get an exact replacement, he has contacted Meridian Music, which traced the piano’s serial number to find out when it was made.

The two Steinway grand pianos, that sit on casters on the stage floor, are “perfectly fine.”

“That would have been even more catastrophic if we lost one of the grand pianos,” Fraza said.

Another concern is the electrical conduit and boxes under the stage floor.

“We will have to blow air through the conduit until it is dried out and then test it to make sure the wires are OK,” Fraza said. “There are a lot of huge question marks about what can be saved and what has to be replaced. Some of those won’t be known until the floor is peeled up. That’s when we’ll see if we get good news or bad news.

“The biggest question is electrical. It could actually test OK, but if rust develops in the conduits, then we would have a problem. We could have to pull the wires as a preventative measure.”

McHale’s July schedule is normally fairly light, Fraza noted, but that won’t be the case this year with two musicals scheduled between July 17 and Aug. 2.

Civic Players’ performance of “Finian’s Rainbow” is being cut to one weekend with shows July 17-19.

Beginning July 20, scenery for the Junior Civic Theater’s musical “Willy Wonka” will start being delivered to the theater with rehearsals to follow. That show is July 31 and Aug. 1-2.

“The crew looked at me like I was nuts when I told them,” Fraza said. “This is an exception, though, and they understand it. That’s about as tight as I ever remember doing it.”

• John Dempsey is associate editor of the Pharos-Tribune. He can be reached at (574) 732-5150 or by e-mail at john.dempsey@pharostribune.com