Wasn't the engineering building on the West Green a dorm back in the day?

They were all dorms when I was at O.U. in the mid/late 70's

Does anyone remember the name it used to be?

Thank you!

https://www.ohio.edu/housing/former-names

I found this and it appears that about 6 buildings near the South Green were demolished in 2016-17. I wonder what that was all about.

There were a number of "issues" with some of the buildings because of flooding.

When I was at O.U., their ground floors were always getting flooded, to one degree or another especially in the Spring.

Their construction predated Flood Maps.

Today, under FEMA regulations, you probably wouldn't be allowed to build them.

"reason given" - may be vey different than the "reason why"

IMHO, demolishing the Old South dorms is the only legitimate demolition of OU buildings in my memory. These buildings were very poorly constructed. They were put up hurriedly during the student boom years. This contrasts greatly with buildings like Scott that were very well built and could easily have lasted multiple centuries.

That was 20 years after I was there.

I have no idea what O.U. did in the interim to try to address the problems with what we call "nuisance" flooding, on New South.

I dated a girl on New South, the Spring of my Freshman year.

She used to call me (back when dorms had phones in the rooms) to tell
me if I needed to use the elevated walkway to go visit.

We used to jog on the road that ran behind New South.
There were a number of times we couldn't get through because of water.

Again, why would they bother building elevated walkways, if there were no flooding issues ?

I got to O.U. the year they were completing moving the Hocking River.

Apparently, the flooding all over campus, was much worse before it was moved.

When I was there, the ground floors of at least some of the dorms on New South had "open archways".

If current on-line pictures are accurate, they've been closed in.
That, in and of itself would keep out water.

Just for "shits and giggles" I checked the current (2009) FEMA FIRM Flood Map.
New South is smack dab in the middle of the Flood Hazard Area, and very close to
the Floodway.

So, if there's a 100 year flood, that whole area is under water.

The FEMA FIRM Map doesn't show existing ground elevations so I don't know how
deep the water would get.

I'm sure the information is out there somewhere, but I don't know if/when Athens had a "actual" 100 year flood.

People, especially the media, throw around the words "100 Year Storm" or "100 Year Flood" all the time.

But, to be a true " 100 year flood" the water levels have a "hit" the elevations shown on FEMA FIRM Map.

You can go to FEMA's web site and look up any of the New South dorms, by their street address, (I did 167 South Green Drive) you can see just how flood prone that area is.

I was in Athens '72 - '76 but lived on West Green which was great for playing hoops in Grover. But I had friends on New South and recall the water issues. West Green was great since a lot of the Bobcat basketball team lived there so we had a chance to play with/against them in pickup games. And the first bar we hit uptown was The Graduate or the Union.

As far as Baker, and the new dorms, as I said in my previous posts, you can build in a 100 year Food Zone, if you follow certain restrictions.

In NJ, that includes restrictions on what is called "Net Fill" and the elevation of the lowest living space being 1 foot above the 100 year (Base Flood) flood elevation.
(FEMA calls it BF+1)

As I also posted, its obvious from the online pictures, that's what O.U. did with Tanaka Hall.

If you do build in a 100 year flood zone, normally,to get a Certificate of Occupancy you have to provide an Elevation Certificate.

That's a FEMA document, that's signed and sealed by a Licensed Land Surveyor, that shows if a structure was built per its approved elevations.

As far as parking garages, they aren't subject to the same restrictions.

I've seen some projects in North Jersey where FEMA and/or the NJDEP allowed 2' of water in 100 year storm.

I've designed projects that use watertight "flood barriers" that act as a "dam" to keep flood waters from entering parking garages.

Athens hasn't had anything close to 100 year storm since Baker and the dorms were built.
So I don't know what happens to the their parking garages in a 100 year storm.

As far as I know, it had been planned for years.

The 1968 Flood was what finally pushed the Army Corps of Engineers to move the river.

I lived in GAM,starting in the Fall of 1971.

I met some people who had been at O.U. for a few years.

They said the East Green had flooding every Spring, including when they started to move the Hocking.
But apparently the 1968 flood was really bad.

The Army Corps started the project in 1969.

They say it was completed in 1971.

When I got to O.U. most of the work was
done.

There was still some work being done, mostly along the river banks, including for some outfall structures, on and off through at least part of 1972.

When I started at O.U. the old riverbed was still there, as were some of the pedestrian bridges to cross it.

I was amazed at how narrow it was, compared to the relocated river.

I've seen pictures of desks put end to end from GAM to Shively so students could get across the street during floods.