No School Tomorrow, Workers Continue To Clear Roofs

Students in the Woonsocket public school system will get another day off tomorrow as workers continue to remove snow from the roofs of city schools.

Engineers from Camp Dresser and Mc Kee were called in on Friday after maintenance supervisor Henry Trudeau noticed the roof sagging at and brought the problem to the attention of Superintendent Robert Gerardi. 

Laborers from Eagle Roofing and American Laborers Service began clearing school roofs on Saturday, but after two days of efforts still had significant loads to remove to secure the buildings.

"It's a good thing we noticed when we did," said Gerardi. "The mayor and myself met with the engineering firm and the contractors who were doing the work and they were able to calculate the snow loads." Weight from the accumulated snow and rain of the past several weeks was deemed beyond the roofs' capacity.

"The effort was justified and fruitful," Building Official Chris Chianese said of the decision to close the public school buildings to secure the roofs. Chianese has had a busy week with roof collapses and close calls throughout the city including several residential garages, Family Dollar, the former Vermette's Restaurant, a local car wash and the 75 X 75 foot building that once held Seville Dye. Chianese put out the original memo to the school department warning of the need for assessments after receiving a notice from the state recommending the procedure. 

"As soon as one shovel full of snow is removed the load starts to decrease," Chianese said.

A crew of around 70 people operated on the middle schools, the high school and on Sunday. As of 1 p.m. this afternoon, crews were spread among 7 more public school buildings. 

According to Gerardi, engineers felt confident they would be able to remediate the rest of the problem tomorrow, and that schools would be open on Tuesday.

Mount Saint Charles Academy will run as scheduled on Monday, as will Monsignor Gadoury and Good Shepherd.