Crews from Wantagh Construction Company Unharmed During LBHS Ceiling Collapse

Crews from a Wantagh construction management company were working at Long Beach High School (LBHS) this past Friday but nobody was injured from the incident.

Peter Wilk, a spokesman from the Brooklyn-based Wilk Marketing Communications, a public relations firm working with a renovation and construction team at LBHS, said that crews from the Wantagh-based Gramercy Wrecking & Environmental Contractors were preparing the site for the removal of the heating and cooling system’s piping in the vicinity of the incident. However no crews from the Wantagh company were present or working in the parking area at the time of the collapse, Wilk said.

“The entire construction site is separated from the school grounds and all noisy or disruptive work is taking place only after school hours,” stated Wilk, who noted that the ceiling was originally installed in the early 1970s.

Gramercy is headquartered on 3000 Burns Ave. in Wantagh. The company has helped demolish many structures in the New York City region including Giants Stadium two years ago. 

Wilk said in a statement early Saturday morning that crews were working overnight to secure and remove an extended area of suspended stucco ceiling that collapsed inside the ground-floor's east parking area, under the second story of the high school, at 322 Lagoon Drive West in Lido Beach, at about 5:10 p.m. Friday, according to Nassau County Police Department.

The police department’s Emergency Services Unit and Canine Unit and Point Lookout-Lido Fire Department firefighters responded to the scene Friday afternoon and reported no injuries at the school, which was closed for spring recess.

Point Lookout-Lido Chief Brian Guerin said that when he and firefighters arrived at the scene their first priority was to make sure no one was buried under the fallen ceiling. “We had to make sure no people or cars were underneath it; that there were no injuries at all,” he said.

But firefighters were cautious about entering the area, he noted, unsure if the building’s structure was compromised and a further collapse was imminent. “Initially we didn’t know that until we assessed the situation a little and realized it wasn’t structural, it was just the ceiling itself,” said Guerin, who add that firefighters found nothing of significance underneath.

Board of Education Vice President Roy Lester said that contractors were at the high school on Thursday and Friday and cut a channel into the ceiling to make upgrades — part of a $98 million district-wide preservation project to improve schools and facilities that voters approved in 2009 — and he believes that because the ceiling had never been cut before the wind may have blown in and caused the ceiling to fluctuate, according to Newsday. 

Long Beach Superintendent David Weiss said in a statement posted on the school district’s website that no one was injured and no cars were damaged due to the collapse, and that the high school will remain closed until it is officially deemed safe: