Posted on: Monday, January 17, 2005

Ceiling crash spurs action

By Rod Ohira
Advertiser Staff Writer

KAILUA — An inspection has found that nine more classrooms at Kailua Intermediate School will need repairs following Friday's ceiling collapse, and the Department of Education will step up inspections of schools statewide, officials said yesterday.

"This is a wake-up call for us to re-look at all our buildings, inside and outside," Deputy Schools Superintendent Clayton Fujie said at a news conference at the school.

Eight students and a science teacher were treated for minor injuries at Castle Medical Center after a portion of the plaster ceiling in Room 219 fell shortly after noon on Friday. No one was exposed to hazardous materials, officials determined.

Following the incident, Kailua Intermediate principal Suzanne Mulcahy requested that structural engineers inspect the entire 50-year-old school. The inspection by Nagamine & Associates, completed yesterday, found that most of the school's 62 classrooms are sound but that 10 classrooms in Building C — where the collapse occurred — need to have corroded ceiling tie wires replaced.

Repairing and retrofitting those 10 classrooms will take two to three weeks, Mulcahy said.

The school will be closed tomorrow to allow teachers and administrators to plan where to move classes held in those rooms, she said.

The use of tie wires to hold up plaster ceilings was common practice decades ago, officials said. Corrosion caused those wires to fail in Room 219, and the consultants found corroded tie wires in nine other classrooms in Building C, said Richard Soo, the DOE's fire safety manager. The same building lost a portion of its roof to high winds last year.

Consultants did not find corroded wires in other buildings, Mulcahy said.

Roy Tsumoto, a DOE facilities specialist, said the department will be inspecting schools, like Kailua Intermediate, built over a half-century ago under different construction standards than those used today.

First-year teacher Katie Vaughan, who was among those in Room 219 on Friday, yesterday recalled hearing a "cracking sound" and a girl's scream before she saw the ceiling come down. "Everything just collapsed," said Vaughan. "I thought we had been hit by something because ceilings just don't come down."

Vaughan said she put up her hand to protect herself. "My first instinct was that I was going to get crushed," she said. "It fell on me but it wasn't as heavy as I thought because it wasn't concrete."

Mulcahy said she is confident that the rest of the school is safe. "They (the consultant) certified the remaining rooms on campus can be used," she said. "I feel safe. Everyone focuses on children but people sometimes forget that (the faculty) need to feel safe, too. I need to know the status of the campus is completely safe for everyone before I let anyone return to school."

Mulcahy said tomorrow will be used by faculty to design a plan to relocate the Building C classes around campus. The cafeteria, she noted, will be used as one relocation site. About 250 students go to class in Building C each day.

"It won't be easy but we will make do," Mulcahy said.

The fact that no one was seriously injured is the important thing, she said.

Reach Rod Ohira at rohira@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-8181.