RADFORD — When Radford University baseball coach Alex Guerra went to his team’s ballpark Saturday, he received quite a shock.
The field was completely flooded, with the water about 4 feet high. In the wake of Hurricane Helene, the nearby New River had crested at 31.03 feet Saturday morning.
“It was a tough scene,” Guerra said Monday at the ballpark.
The water at the ballpark has receded, but the damage remains.
The outfield fence was affected, as well as the artificial turf on the field, the dugouts, the batting cages, the bullpen, the equipment room, a shed and the walls down the left-field and right-field foul lines. Guerra assumes the video board’s electrical system was affected as well. He does not know if the ballpark’s lights and speaker system work.
Guerra figures it will cost at least $3 million to repair the damage to Sherman Carter Memorial Stadium.
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“I would say this is about as close to a total rebuild as you can do,” Guerra said. “You need new turf. New entire (outfield) wall. The electrical (for the) video board. The cages. All the padding (down the foul lines). And then equipment-wise, you’re probably talking about $200,000 in equipment — machines, baseballs, training gloves, training bats.
“We can’t play on this (field).
“You’re talking a whole facility rebuild.”
The team won’t be able to use the field in October, which is the final month of fall practice. The Highlanders will practice this week at Virginia Tech and at Calfee Park instead. An exhibition game against a junior college this weekend will shift to Salem Memorial Ballpark.
Radford’s regular season will begin in February. Guerra is worried that a check from the insurance company will come too late to repair the ballpark in time for the start of the season. So he has already begun calling Radford donors to see if he can raise the money to start the repairs as soon as possible —before the insurance check comes.
“The insurance claim, it’s going to take awhile. We’re going to need help from a financial standpoint to put the money up front before we get the insurance money,” Guerra said. “The insurance claim will be a year maybe? A year and half? … This is a major, major, major claim because in my mind, it’s a total rebuild.
“Whether it be auxiliary funds or whether it be privately donated, (money is needed) to beat the timing of it. Because the priority is getting on our field in the spring. You can play at Calfee Park if need be; they’ve already been unbelievable. … Salem’s been unbelievable, Virginia Tech’s been awesome. So I’m not really worried about us playing (somewhere). But I want to play here in the spring. And we’re going to need help. … I don’t know if there’s a day that can be wasted.”
Five fence-high segments of rubber-padded wood covering the outfield fences came off in the flood.
“That piece is gone,” Guerra said in reference to a missing piece. “I don’t know where it is. Probably floated down the river.”
Other segments of the padding covering the outfield fence sustained water damage.
“There’s a ton of individual pieces that need to get replaced. I would say the whole thing,” Guerra said. “When water gets deep into these pads, they rot.
“Timing is really not on our side right now. Just ordering the pads to get made, that’s a large order. … We need a whole new fence. … Every piece is destroyed.”
The padded wood covering the walls along the left-field and right-field foul lines came off during the flood, leaving the brick exposed.
The ballpark debuted in 1986 but was renovated and gained lights and a new grandstand in 2011. The grandstand was not affected by the flood.
New artificial turf was installed in 2021. But that turf is now muddy and damaged and will need replacing.
“All this mud, that’s just everywhere,” Guerra said as he looked down at the field. “I don’t know if you can clean it.
“The smell, the bacteria (are problems).
“The bigger issue is what’s going on underneath. It’s not like a rug (where) you just fold it back out and fix it.
“So to me it’s a total rebuild.”
New dugouts were built in 2011. But rubber pieces of a dugout floor came off in the flood. Dugout floors and benches are covered in mud.
“You’re going to tell teams and kids to sit on that, even though you clean it?” Guerra said of the dugout benches. “Think of the bacteria from the river.”
Guerra said the batting cages next to the field need to be replaced because of the damage to the cages’ artificial turf.
“The turf’s not salvageable,” Guerra said.
A pitching mound from the bullpen next to the field now rests on top of tables and chairs in a seating area along the right-field line.
Guerra said 180-dozen baseballs were damaged when the equipment room next to the first-base dugout was flooded.
“You’re talking $50,000 at least of baseballs,” Guerra said. “You’re talking another $30,000 in machines. Plus another $20,000 in miscellaneous pitching stuff, training bats.”
The Appalachian League has already promised to donate 250 new baseballs to the team.
Signage honoring the program’s Major League Baseball draft picks and Radford hall of fame members was also damaged by mud.
Of course, Guerra knows others were more affected by Helene than his team.
“It sucks we have to go through this, but there’s a lot of people that have it worse than us,” he said.
Mark Berman (540) 981-3125
mark.berman@roanoke.com
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