Friday, April 9, 2010
By Laura Vaughn
Copy Editor
Damage to the overhang of the main hall between the sixties and seventies classrooms due to dry rotting was noticed on March 22.
The area was consequently blocked off in order to prevent students from being harmed. During those two days, the hallways were only accessible to those working to correct the damage.
“There was an extensive amount of dry rotting in the overhang, and the weight of the concrete basically overstressed the wood. There was a piece of concrete that was almost ready to fall down,” Vice Principal Paula Spence said.
“It was a safety threat and we decided to block off the area until the matter was resolved,” Spence said.
Before school on the morning of March 22, Manager of Maintenance and Operations Jeff Mullikin observed that a piece of concrete from the overhang was loose and close to dangling over the hallway from the overhang.
He identified it as a hazard to student safety and formally notified the administration, who used orange fencing to block off that portion of the main hall until Wednesday afternoon.
“The shoring is only temporary in the sense that it will stay until we fully repair the ceiling of the overhang. We were able to identify this problem quickly, and we hope to solve it just as quickly so that we disturb student activity on campus as little as possible,” Mullikin said.
Because the area was blocked off, many students were forced to find alternate routes in order to get to their classes until the administation was confident that the area was safe for students to walk through.
“It was kind of inconvenient because the route that I use to get to a lot of my classes was disrupted. However, I understand that it was for all the safety of students, and that should come first,” sophomore Acacia Moore said.
Maintenance worked with a structural engineer to shore up the overhang, and wood panels were placed on the opposite side of the hall in order to support the structure and prevent total collapse of the overhang.
“The structural engineer shored the ceiling to eliminate any immediate safety concerns so that we could get the main hall back up and running again,” Mullikin said.
However, this is only a temporary fix for the overhang.
The shoring will remain for the rest of the school year, and administrators hope they will be able to fully repair the damage over the summer, because the time it takes to repair the overhang (during which time the hallway would be blocked off) could be overly disruptive.
“It’s perfectly safe for now and, hopefully, it will be redone this summer,” Principal Julie Ruisinger said.
This is the first incident in recent years of a damaged campus structure possibly causing harm to students.
Administrators are concerned that this may be the first of many such instances in which age of the campus will begin to show with similar events.
“This campus is over 60 years old, and as the school ages, these types of problems are bound to come up. That’s why we have passed bonds so that we can build new buildings and ensure future safety,” Spence said.
Administrators say that while the damages are unfortunate, they come at a relatively acceptable time because the Bond BB modernization project is mostly focused on updating the 60-year-old school. Updating the structure of the school in the project will not cost as much as most structural improvements do.
“The architects are working very hard to make the plan come together and be more cost efficient,” Ruisinger said.
Leave a Reply