Snow Tests School Roofs National Guard Takes On The Heavy Snowfall That Is Damaging School Buildings In Bonner County

About 100 National Guard personnel, armed with shovels and snowblowers, arrived here late Tuesday to battle snowdrifts on top of Bonner County’s 16 schools.

The auditorium roof at Sandpoint High School caved in under the weight of the wet snow Monday. Other school roofs are creaking and may have already been damaged by the heavy snow.

“This could very well affect the start of school (next week),” said district maintenance and operations director, Sid Rayfield. “We have to review each school but our first goal is to get the snow off the roofs.”

Because of safety concerns, the schools have been closed to employees and the public. Idaho Gov. Phil Batt declared Bonner County a disaster area Monday and the National Guard was sent to help prevent more damage to the schools. Structural engineers from the National Guard, the city and county will inspect roof trusses at each school in the next few days.

“Unless we get a clean bill of health from the inspectors and engineers, we are not going to let anybody back into the buildings,” Superintendent Max Harrell said. “My hunch right now is we are not going to see any damage that will keep kids out of school, but we may or may not be opening on Monday.”

Even though the high school has a pitched, metal roof, it couldn’t handle the 6-foot snow drifts. A 40-foot-wide section caved in and more of the roof came down Tuesday. The auditorium, a music and art room are unusable now. The district is drafting a plan to hold some high school classes elsewhere when school does resume.

Crews were already repairing the high school, a job that could cost more than $100,000 and take a month to complete. The district’s insurance company is paying for the damage.

“We know some of the other schools have problems too,” Rayfield said.

Cracks have appeared and some ceiling tiles are falling in the gym at Farmin-Stidwell Elementary. Roof beams also cracked at Priest River Elementary.

The National Guard crews are being housed at Sandpoint Middle School, where the roof already has been cleared.

The district purchased 60 snow shovels in Spokane for the crews after stores in Sandpoint ran out.

The district had been clearing roofs after some of the snow storms. Several employees were hurt working on them and there wasn’t enough manpower to clear the roofs after last weekend’s storm dropped 9-foot drifts on top of some schools.

“It’s been difficult to find help,” Harrell said.

“The storms just got ahead of us and we couldn’t keep up.”

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