Print  email 

Heavy snow causes roof at Capital High to collapse

District official unsure if school will be ready when classes resume Jan. 5

By Jeremy Pawloski | The Olympian • Published December 26, 2008

• Comments (0)

About 2,500 square-feet of Capital High School's roof collapsed Thursday morning under the weight of more than a foot of heavy snow that has accumulated during the past week, sending firefighters, school officials and engineers to the Conger Avenue building Christmas Day to assess the damage.

There is water damage in several areas of the school, caused by sprinkler systems activated when the collapse set off the building's fire alarm, and by a waterline that was severed in the collapse, said Peter Rex, a spokesman for the Olympia School District.

Water damage

Rex described the water damage as being located in a "significant portion" of the school.

The collapse occurred at around 4:55 a.m., above a hallway and library area just back from the main entrance of the school, said Olympia Assistant Fire Chief Greg Wright. Wright said the area of the collapse is as big as a residential home.

Rex said he thinks the library is one of the areas that suffered water damage.

"We'll probably have some wet books that we'll need to take care of," he said.

Rex said it remains to be seen what will happen when school is scheduled to reopen after the winter break. The goal is to get the school ready for classes by Jan. 5, when school is scheduled to reopen, he said.

"If we can get in and it's a fairly confined area, then we can operate around it," he said.

The roof collapse set off a fire alarm and a burglar alarm, dispatching the fire department to the scene, Wright said.

Wright said firefighters worked around the periphery of the school Thursday morning -- no one could enter the school itself until a structural engineer examined the building.

No one was inside the school at the time of the collapse, Wright said.

The gas and power at the school were turned off after the collapse, Rex said.

Rex said Thursday afternoon that a structural engineer had examined the collapse, and determined that there are "some parts of the building that are safe to be in, and there are others that are not safe to be in."

An HVAC ventilation unit on the roof was damaged in the collapse, hanging partway down to the ceiling of the building, Rex said. That is one of the portions of the school that was deemed unsafe by the engineer, Rex said.

Bringing in a crane

Construction officials planned to bring a crane to the school Thursday or today to remove the damaged HVAC unit, Rex said.

Today, construction crews also will do some "shoring up work" on the roof to make sure the school is habitable. Crews also will work on removing snow from the school's roof, he said.

Rex said he also would meet with the school's insurers.

Wright said the moisture under the week's worth of snow likely added to the weight above the school's flat roof Wednesday night, and if the roof's drainage pipes were frozen and blocked, all of those factors could have contributed to the roof to give way.

Rex said he thinks Capital High School was built in 1976 or 1977. He added that most of the other schools in the district "have some kind of sloped roof," but the one at Capital is flat.

The portion of the roof that collapsed is part of the school's original roof, and is not one of the areas of the school that has been remodeled, he said.

Jeremy Pawloski covers public safety for The Olympian. He can be reached at 360-754-5465 or jpawloski@theolympian.com.