It was “Mother Nature” at fault in the case of cracks at Oxford High School that caused the building to be closed for four consecutive days of school, according to a long-delayed report released by school officials Tuesday.
School Superintendent Edward Malvey released the engineering report at the end of a lengthy Board of Education meeting Tuesday night at Oxford High School.
School custodians discovered cracks in the walls in the school Thursday, Feb. 3. The cracks — and concerns about the roof’s capacity to hold the heavy snow load — canceled classes at the school until Feb. 10.
“The best determination of what caused it was the snow load on the roof,” Malvey said in comments following the meeting.
O & G Industries, the company in charge of building the five-year-old school, will cover repair costs.
Business Manager Rosemary Hanson said it could cost $125,000 to pay for the snow removal that was necessary to perform the engineering study of the building.
The question now is whether the insurance will cover those costs. The report was immediately forwarded to the insurance company Tuesday afternoon, Malvey said.
The report showed the building is structurally sound, and the cracks were only in cosmetic surfaces, what is known in carpentry jargon as “soft joints,” Hanson said.
“I’m glad we finally got this report,” McKinnon said, declining further comment.
Some highlights from the three-page report from Pustola & Associates in Naugatuck:
- The engineers found no structural, permanent deformation of the walls. The wall supports were also inspected to see if the connections suffered from the excessive snow load.
- A small strip of second floor slab adjacent to a wall was removed to inspect, and it was found that a concrete wall support clip was missing and had not been installed. Repairs were made.
The report concluded that the repairs — including supplemental bracing — insures that any future snow loads like this past winter would not impact the building. Snow had drifted and caused vertical load, or heavy pressure weight, on the building, according to the report.
In other words, it was a rough winter.
Malvey remarked about it to the school board.
“I have never ever seen anything so disastrous with weather as what we’ve lived through this past winter,” Malvey said.
He knocked on wood.
“And I hope it’s over.”
