By Ryan Navrot
Homer High School has had a long history of leaky gym roofs. Depending on who you talk to, for at least eight or nine years, water has been dripping into the trophy hall or onto the gym bleachers, depending on how the building is sitting on the frost. This year is no different, other than the fact that the water leakage is dripping onto the floor in the corner by the water fountain.
Thankfully, Chris Perk has it under control. He has a Tupperware toat underneath the leak, preventing it from damaging the floor. Even if the water was dripping on the floor, it is designed to sit about three inches off the ground, so any moisture that falls on the floor will drip through, causing less damage then if it was “swimming” in it.
The leakage is most likely caused by too much snow being blown under the rafters or snow blowing into the vent in the ceiling, the latter of which is unfixable. If too much snow is on the roof, fixing it will not happen until this summer, when it’s safe to walk on. There’s nothing the school can do about snow in the vents, because when it melts, it melts.
Homer High School’s janitor, Jim Kienitz, said that every year the problem is fixed, and when winter comes around next year, the leakage will start again, and be dealt with the following summer.
The bucket catching the roof water.