Northland church building declared unsafe after powerful floodwaters burst into basement

• Looking in the basement

Westminster Presbyterian Church facilities committee members Paul Rigstad (left) and Tami Abramson look into a room of the basement of the church where a culvert burst during the flash flooding in June. The basement filled with 5-6 feet of water. (Clint Austin / caustin@duluthnews.com)

• Map: Westminster Presbyterian Church

Map: Westminster Presbyterian Church

The basement of Westminster Presbyterian Church in West Duluth is a mess.

A wall separating a hallway from the quilting room is broken out. Three pianos are flipped on their backs, as is a refrigerator. Throughout the basement, heavy objects are strewn about randomly as if by superhuman vandals. The entire floor is covered with thick, slippery mud, and it?s cracked in several places. The floor of the gymnasium is buckled. A brown line 5 feet up runs along all of the walls. But the line is difficult to see in places because wiring is damaged and the lights don?t always go on.

The brown line runs through the bottom of a portrait of Jesus on the wall of the nursery, one of the few items left standing after gushing water filled the basement sometime during the torrential rainstorm of June 19-20. Also still in their places are dishes in the kitchen cabinet, but they?re covered with mud.

?Appetizing, huh?? said Paul Rigstad, as he pointed at the dishes.

Rigstad and Tami Abramson, members of the church?s finance and facilities committee, offered a tour of the basement on Thursday, shortly after they met with representatives of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Small Business Administration. Rigstad said the SBA estimated damage to the 50-year-old building to be at least $400,000.

There?s little the 80-some members of the church that sits between Walgreens and Dairy Queen on Grand Avenue can do to clean up the mess. The city has declared the building to be unsafe. Worship services have moved to the Cremation Society of Minnesota?s Duluth Chapel, a few blocks down the street. Church mail is coming to a post office box.

No one knows what?s going to happen next.

?We?re meeting on Monday to discuss what the next move might be,? said Mary B. Voss, a lay pastor and a member of the church?s governing body, known as the Session. ?It?s a pretty devastating situation.?

Church members say they know where the water came from. A city map shows a culvert that runs under nearby Public School Stadium crosses directly under the church and under Grand Avenue toward the Erbert & Gerbert?s sandwich shop across the street.

A private developer built the culvert decades ago for a creek that ran through the property, said Don Douglas, claims investigator for the city of Duluth. That may have happened long before the church was built. ?We have a number of those in the city where people developed land over a creek or stream,? he said.

?Over umpteen years it?s never been an issue or a problem,? Douglas said. ?But when you have a 500-year flood, the system can?t handle that much, and it?s going to cause some reactions.?

Abramson was the first to discover the damage at Westminster Presbyterian. Accompanied by her grown children, she went to check on relatives? homes the morning of June 20 and decided to check on the church as well. The water already had receded to about 5 or 6 inches, she said, but as they made their way gingerly down the hallway of the darkened basement, they could hear the sound of rushing water. Unable to see what they were stepping on, they retreated to notify other church officials and the church?s insurance company.

A return visit the next day offered a clearer picture of the damage, which demonstrated the force of the water that came into the church. A 5-foot radiator next to the quilting room wall that broke out still hasn?t been found, Rigstad said. An overturned box in the hallway had contained five sewing machines. Choir robes from one room ended up on the side of another.

Pointing to a jumble of boxes and materials in the nursery, Abramson said, ?The rooms all look like this. Disheveled. Full of mud. Things tossed around.?

The church has suffered water damage before, although not to the same extent. Two years ago in August, water came up through the sanitary sewer and filled the basement to 6 inches, Rigstad said. The cost of repairs was $96,000. This past November, the church spent $30,000 for a new furnace.

No one yet knows how much it would cost to make repairs this time around, or even if the building is salvageable, Rigstad said. The building is insured for $1 million. ?If or what the insurance company is going to cover, they have made no commitment one way or the other,? he said.

A forensic engineer is coming to offer his assessment ahead of Monday?s meeting, he said.

The city doesn?t appear to be liable, Douglas said.

?The culvert was not placed by the city, is not owned by the city, is not maintained by the city,? he said.

For the time being, conducting services at the Cremation Society is working well, Voss said. The chapel has a piano and organ, the building is handicapped-accessible and there?s ample parking. And it?s being offered rent-free.

Art Johnson, one of the Cremation Society?s directors, said no time frame has been established as to how long the church can use the facility. ?It?s just on Sunday morning,? he said. ?It works out with us.?

Westminster Presbyterian is part of a four-church parish along with Presbyterian churches in Cloquet, Carlton and Wrenshall, Voss said. They don?t currently have a pastor, but two pastors, a husband and wife, are coming to serve the parish in August.

The church is making do with its situation.

?Everybody is involved in helping out,? Voss said. ?It?s a great pleasure to know that everybody?s praying for us and working together to make things work.?

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Source: http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/236903/publisher_ID/36/

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