Holmes commissioners reject bridge project bids; tornado siren protocol to change

MILLERSBURG — Holmes County commissioners on Thursday rejected the bids for the County Road 23 bridge project because bids exceeded the 10 percent limit over the engineer's estimate.

Engineer Chris Young said both bids received for the covered bridge project were higher than $9 million projected cost, which was increased from an original estimate of $8.4 million. The lowest bid received was $10.5 million. Anything over $9.9 was not eligible to be awarded.

"Being a county, if bids come in at 10 percent over the engineer's estimate, we legally can't do that," Young said. "We're hoping to turn this around as quickly as we can. We're rebidding with the next bid opening date being Aug. 15, which is tight, but will keep us on schedule for the work that needs to be done yet this year."

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Adjustment to bridge plans to make project more attractive

The engineer pointed out there will be some adjustments to the project plans in hopes of drawing more bidders.

"And hopefully the price will come down," he added. "The increase in costs from the original estimate was in wood and steel. You just can't get a good estimate on wood or steel."

Feedback from the contractors indicated they would not be able to meet the timeline, which has led to an extension of the completion of the project to 365 days from 270.

"Hopefully we will be successful on Aug. 15, and we can have another meeting to keep the people in the area informed, and introduce them to the contractor who gets the bid," Young said.

Commissioner Joe Miller said he was amazed how much longer wooden bridges last compared to steel structures. Some wooden bridges last 100 years, he said

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Sanitary sewer bid approved

The commissioners approved a bid of $2,991,155 from Workman Industrial Services out of Kent for the Winesburg sanitary sewer treatment expansion project.

"We have worked with this company before. They did the Mount Hope plant and that is working well," Miller said. "We're fortunate to have them."

Young noted no bids were received for the collection system work that needs to be done to bring the sewer lines into the plant. He is meeting with a consultant Monday.

"We're going to tweak the plans and the estimate price, put it out for bid again in a couple weeks, but it should time out well with the treatment plant," he said. "Hopefully both projects will be finished about the same time and be ready to connect and serve the community out there."

EMA reports changes coming in tornado warning siren alerts

In other business, Emergency Management Director Jason Troyer said the county is in the process of changing the way the tornado warning sirens go off.

Troyer said the Ohio Administrative Code (OAC) has jurisdiction over when fire chiefs can activate the sirens. He said they are trying to come up with criteria, as the current requirements are to activate the sirens when there is a tornado warning.

"If you look at the damage we had from the last storm, even though a tornado wasn't seen, we needed to have the sirens activated. That was a serious storm," Troyer said. "Right now, if a tornado warning has been deemed by the National Weather Service, the sirens go off automatically. Anything outside of that, the EMA director, the local fire chiefs, the county sheriff, can manually request the dispatcher set them off. We just don't currently have criteria in place that says at a certain miles per hour stream of winds, that can happen. That's what we want to have happen."

Ohio shy of federal threshold

Troyer reported the damage assessment from the June 13 storm that ripped through the area did not reach the $19 million threshold for the state established by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

For FEMA to kick in, $19 million in damages must result from a storm incident. Troyer said Holmes County had about $1 million in damages.

"The last number I received from the state was $15.2," Troyer said. "That's why it is so important for people to come in an validate what was submitted.

"All the Holmes County jurisdictions that submitted public assistance now have to be verified," he continued. "We have to verify by numbers, pictures and all that. The data is due this week. FEMA will be doing a preliminary damage assessment July 25, virtually."

Commissioner Dave Hall pointed out the storm evaluation is a step along the way to qualify for federal relief.

Kevin Lynch can be reached at klynch@the-daily-record.com.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Record: Change coming to Holmes tornado siren protocol