roof collapses at CHS

Under the weight of Yuletide snow, 2500 square feet of roof collapsed over the library at Capital High School. No injuries--not surprisingly, no one was in the school at the time--but water damage and a broken natural gas line are presented as a lovely gift to the District.

And a very merry Christmas to you.

Oh, and I should add that staff are barred from entrance to the building until further notice, for safety and insurance reasons. Followers of this blog might also want to know that my classroom is a good distance from the library, and is in all likelihood perfectly intact. Although my roof section is also flat....

Update 12/26: The Olympian offers a little more detail concerning the extent of 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....

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.

No one knows if we'll be able to head back to class by January 5th.