Under 5 1/2 feet of snow, the roof at Lakeside High School in Ashtabula County buckled and partially collapsed over the weekend. The damage is even more apparent from inside, with photos from the school district showing this will not be a simple repair job, but a major reconstruction.
"We feel blessed that no one has been injured," Ashtabula Area City Schools Board President Scott Yopp said Tuesday. No one was inside the building at the time of the collapse.
All of the district's schools will be closed for the remainder of the week due to the ongoing bad weather, but Lakeside High will be shut down for multiple weeks — if not longer — as crews work to fix the roof. Questions are also being raised over whether the overhead structure was properly built to sustain the weight of so much snow.
As 3News Investigates noted to Yopp, other buildings in Saybrook Township and around Ashtabula had to sustain 5 1/2 feet of snow, but did not see their roofs collapse. When asked if that makes him concerned about the safety of Lakeside High, Yopp said, "Absolutely."
Problems with the leaky, warping roof began shortly after the school opened in 2006, built by the now-defunct Blaze Construction. Blaze's CEO, Ferris Kleem, went to federal prison for bribery in the massive Cuyahoga County corruption scandal that led to a 28-year sentence for ex-County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora. Dimora's sentence was later reduced and he is now under home confinement.
In 2011, the district sued Blaze Construction for shoddy workmanship. After a consultant told the school board it would take $4 million to fix the problems, it settled for $3 million.
Seven years later, in 2018, buckling from another heavy snowstorm cost Ashtabula Area City Schools another $70,000. The latest disaster has now left the building structurally dangerous.
'It's not just a discussion about, 'Is this good enough? Was it done properly?' but now somebody's going to have to answer," Yopp noted.
For now, the priority is figuring out where to place about 1,000 students and staff in other classrooms off campus, a tough reality that will shape the rest of the school year.
"I hope people, especially this time of year, have understanding (that) it's not going to be a perfect solution," Yopp said. "We are going to turn, really, the lives upside down for a lot of people."
Engineers will also be checking the district's other school buildings for potential snow damage. Officials say Lakeside Junior High, which was built across the street from the high school by a different company, appears to be fine.