LOCAL
Wallowa.com
Wednesday, October 6, 2021
A3
Emergency roof work set at Enterprise school An early look
at COVID-19
breakthrough
case data
Spray coating
planned to tide
school over
until summer
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
ENTERPRISE — Emer-
gency roof repairs are
planned for this month at
the Enterprise School after
a leak was discovered and
the school district’s board of
directors decided Sept. 22 to
have the work done before
winter, according to a press
release.
The board approved an
emergency roof-repair con-
tract with Eagle Cap Con-
struction of La Grande
during a special meeting.
The work was deemed nec-
essary since the planned roof
replacement under a school
bond had been delayed until
next summer because of a
nationwide shortage of roof-
ing materials, the release
stated.
The leak in the high
school roof was discovered
Aug. 19. The district’s roof
design consultant, Struc-
tural Waterproofi ng Con-
sultants of Wilsonville, then
evaluated the roof and found
that approximately 40% of
the high school and cafete-
ria roofs required immedi-
ate repairs to be completed
before winter.
“This year has been dif-
fi cult for contractors to get
construction
materials,”
board Chairwoman Mandy
Decker said in the release.
“We needed to perform the
emergency repair to ensure
that our students could stay
in classes in the buildings
this winter. We look for-
ward to replacing the entire
roof next summer.”
Under an emergency
procurement
declaration,
the district solicited roof
replacement and repair
quotes and received propos-
als from three contractors.
The district selected Eagle
Cap’s repair proposal as the
most cost-eff ective option to
protect the district’s build-
ings until a full roof replace-
ment can be performed next
summer. Eagle Cap will per-
form repairs on a time and
materials basis, with costs
By RONALD BOND
Wallowa County Chieftain
Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain
Workers power clean the roof of the Enterprise High School on Friday, Oct. 1, 2021, in
preparation for an emergency repair job to be conducted the following week. The school
board authorized the repair to be done before winter rather than waiting for the planned
project scheduled for next summer.
capped at $157,200.
Cassie Hibbert, project
manager for the Wenaha
Group — the district’s bond
project manager — said in
an email Sept. 30 the emer-
gency repair will be paid
for out of the general obli-
gation bond plus an Oregon
School Capital Improve-
ment Matching grant.
The scope of the emer-
gency roof repair includes
spraying Expandothane pro-
tective roof coating on top
of the existing roof mem-
brane on targeted areas on
the high school, the cafeteria
and other small areas of the
junior high building. Eagle
Cap has applied this prod-
uct on several commercial
buildings in the La Grande
area to extend roof life.
Three-day job
Hibbert said the repair
work won’t take long. The
contractor pressure washed
the roof Friday to clean it so
the spray coating will adhere
to the existing membrane.
“We are watching the
weather closely and are
planning to have the con-
tractor install the spray coat-
ing next week, likely on
Tuesday and Wednesday,”
Hibbert said last week in an
email. “It will take two days
to install the spray coating.
She said the current roof
is structurally sound, even
though it’s leaking. If a
Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain, File
Emergency repairs to the fl at-top membrane roof of Enterprise
High School will be done this month after the Enterprise
School Board approved an emergency roof-repair contract at
a special meeting Sept. 22, 2021. It was determined the work
needed to be done before winter.
repair isn’t done, there is the
potential for water to leak
inside and damage fi nishes
and be disruptive to school
activities. She said students
and staff are safe under the
current roof.
Hibbert said the contrac-
tor will need to work during
school hours to accom-
plish this work before the
weather turns. The district
and the Wenaha Group will
closely coordinate the con-
tractor’s work to make sure
that they are not disruptive
of any school or extracur-
ricular student activities
and that all students and
staff are safe during those
three days the contractor is
working.
The Enterprise commu-
nity approved a general obli-
gation bond in November
2020 for capital improve-
ment projects, including a
roof replacement on the high
school, junior high and pri-
mary buildings. Following
bond approval, the district
fast-tracked the design and
bidding of the roof replace-
ment for construction during
summer 2021.
The district selected a
roofi ng contractor in April,
but due to national sup-
ply-chain constraints and
raw-material
shortages
associated in part with the
COVID-19 pandemic and
early 2021 storms in the
Southeast U.S., the con-
tractor could not acquire
material in time for summer
construction. The district
canceled that roof contract
and will rebid the full roof
project for construction
during summer 2022, along
with other bond projects.
SALEM — The Ore-
gon Health Authority has
now released just over two
months’ worth of COVID-
19 breakthrough case data.
A breakthrough case
is where an individual
had been fully vaccinated
against COVID-19, yet
still come down with the
virus.
How eff ective, then, is
the vaccine at preventing
COVID-19?
In Oregon, the latest
breakthrough report, pub-
lished Thursday, Sept.
30, showed there were
a known total of 25,347
breakthrough cases in
the state as of Sept. 25.
More than 89% of those
cases (22,636) have been
reported since the OHA
started tracking weekly
breakthrough data during
the week ending July 24.
During that time, there
were a total of 110,054
COVID-19 cases, meaning
20.6% of cases during that
nine-week stretch were
people who were vacci-
nated and 79.4% were
unvaccinated.
At that time of the
report, there were approxi-
mately 2.49 million Orego-
nians who had been fully
vaccinated, which means
to this point, of close to
2.5 million vaccinated
Oregonians, only about
1.01% have reported get-
ting COVID-19. For com-
parison’s sake, the percent-
age of reported COVID-19
cases in Oregon during the
pandemic, as of Sept. 25,
was about 7.53% of the
total population.
In Wallowa County,
there have been 61 break-
through cases reported as
of Sept. 25, meaning they
made up around 11% of
all known cases through
that date. Through Sept.
25, there were 3,602 Wal-
lowa County residents who
had been fully vaccinated,
meaning the rate of a
breakthrough case locally
is higher than the state
rate at 1.7%. The county,
on that date, had an over-
all infection rate of about
7.5%.
Hospitalization
and
death rates among break-
through cases are run-
ning lower than the overall
rate. Of the 25,347 known
breakthroughs, there were
1,168 hospitalizations and
218 deaths — rates of
4.6% and 0.86%, respec-
tively. Overall hospitaliza-
tion and deaths rates have
come down since the vac-
cine’s implementation, and
currently are at 5.39% and
1.15%.
Perhaps the starkest dif-
ference is change in sur-
vival rate among the most
susceptible to COVID-19,
those 80 and older. Mortal-
ity rates for that age group
prevaccine varied between
about 22-23%. Currently,
in a breakthrough-case
scenario, the mortality rate
is about three times lower
at 6.36%.
Of roughly 135,200
individuals 80 and older to
get fully vaccinated, just
1,825 are known to have
still contracted the virus,
with 393 being hospital-
ized and 116 dying.
Overall,
the
sur-
vival rate of an individ-
ual contracting COVID-19
despite getting the vac-
cine, when looking at how
many breakthrough cases
and deaths there have been
among the vaccinated, is
99.992%.
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11 AM TO 7 PM
WED, THUR, SUN
Joseph City Council to meet virtually Thursday
Meeting packet
available online
Chieftain staff
JOSEPH — Filling some
vacant seats on the Joseph
City Council will be on the
agenda when it meets Thurs-
day, Oct. 7 at 7 p.m., accord-
ing to a press release.
The formal agenda and
packet supplied to city
councilors is now available
online at https://towncloud.
io/go/joseph-or.
The meeting will be held
virtually given coronavi-
rus pandemic restrictions.
To join the Zoom meet-
ing, visit https://us02web.
zoom.us/j/88138754137?p-
wd=Z3c4WEFxUzdWL-
3RqdzhSbkFPSFRodz09.
The meeting ID is 881 3875
4137 and the passcode is
269827. To attend by tele-
phone, call 1-253-215-8782.
The vacant seats that
need fi lling include appoint-
ing a new mayor pro-tem to
replace Lisa Collier, who
was voted to become mayor
in September after the res-
ignation of former Mayor
Belinda Buswell. The for-
mer mayor moved out of
Joseph, disqualifying her
from holding the post.
The council also needs
to fi ll Collier’s now-vacant
council seat and one left
vacant July 1 when former
Mayor Pro-Tem and City
Councilor Kathy Bingham
resigned after being cen-
sured by the full council.
She also was removed from
committee
assignments,
which will have to be fi lled.
As of Monday, Oct. 4,
according to the release, the
council had received three
applications for the vacant
council seats. The appli-
cations came from Ryan
Swindlehurst, Nancy Par-
menter and Brinda Dag-
gett Stanley. The council
has the option of making
an appointment or defer-
ring such action to a later
meeting.
Also on the agenda for
Thursday, the council will:
• Consider a condi-
tional use application from
Scott Clark of Prairie City
for a shop or residence in a
now-vacant lot that is in an
R-1 (residential) zone. In
his application, Clark stated
he would like to construct a
small single-story shop with
living space, toilet and sink
on the property between 5th
and 6th streets, but has no
egress at present.
• Hear a presentation by
Brad Baird of Anderson
Perry on the city’s ongoing
public works projects.
The next council meeting
is tentatively scheduled for
Thursday, Nov. 4.
while supplies
last
11 AM TO 8 PM: FRI & SAT
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