LR storm caves roof at school

J.A. Fair looks at moving classes

BY CHAD DAY AND LINDSAY RUEBENS

Photo by Karen E. Segrave

This section of a wall at J.A. Fair High School buckled after heavy rains caused a portion of the roof to collapse.

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LITTLE ROCK — A Little Rock high school was heavily damaged by water when a portion of its
roof and walls collapsed during a storm Tuesday evening.
Classes won’t be held today at the nearly 30-year old J.A. Fair High School at 13420 David O.
Dodd Road, where water from the storm flooded a large part of the building and collapsed the
ceilings in at least three classrooms in the school’s north wing, Principal Brenda Allen said.
No one was injured in the collapse.
The district is working on a plan to house the school’s students until June 4, the final day of
classes, district spokesman Tiffany Hoffman said. More than 1,100 students attend the school.

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School roof collapse
A damage estimate hadn’t been determined as of Tuesday evening, but at least one structural
engineer had visited the school to survey the damage, Hoffman said. District Superintendent
Linda Watson and Allen had also looked over the damage.
Allen was in her office in the school when the storm hit between 5:30 and 6 p.m., she said. At
first, she said she didn’t think the storm was powerful enough to damage the building. But,
shortly after, custodians alerted her to the damage. When she looked at video monitors fed by
security cameras placed throughout the building, she was shocked, she said.
“There were lockers blown over and concrete cinder blocks from the walls thrown down the halls
and doors were off their hinges,” she said, noting the library was also flooded.
“I was just devastated by this and immediately thought of the things coming up, final exams and
graduation tomorrow,” she said. “It was frightening to me because it’s quite a bit of structure
damage.”
About 8 p.m., Allen and about a dozen school officials, teachers and others were at the school
assessing the damage. At least 1 inch of water covered the floor near the front door, increasing
to nearly 6 inches in the north wing of the school. There, lockers had been torn from the wall,
and papers, insulation and other debris were scattered throughout the hallways. Desks were
thrown about. In some parts, the ceiling sagged nearly 6 feet.
Also, officials at the school said a major support beam in the wing of the building appeared to
have been loosened from the collapse. The exterior of the building had visibly buckled, causing
gutters and downspouts to be dislodged.
School Board member Melanie Fox said district administrators would be working today to see if
a portion of the school could still be used for classes where underclassmen were scheduled to
take final exams next week.
Because the storm damage occurred late in the day, administrators were caught without much
time to work with, Fox said.
“We didn’t have a lot of daylight to assess the situation very well,” Fox said. “We’re going to
have to try to figure out a way to accommodate those students.”
One option, she said, could be to break the students up by grade level and house the mat other
locations, Fox said, noting campus buildings at Pulaski Technical College and the University of
Arkansas at Little Rock may be used.
The damage will not disrupt the school’s graduation ceremony tonight at Verizon Arena, Fox
said. However, seniors attending the graduation walk-through should report to Verizon Arena
instead of meeting at the high school, she said. Students who can’t find transportation to the
arena can meet at the school where a bus will take them across town, she said.
Built in 1981 and opened in 1982 by the Pulaski County Special School District, the building was
named for James Augustus Fair, a teacher, administrator and former county district board
member.
Until 1987 it served grades 7 through 12. In 1987, it opened as a senior high school in the Little
Rock School District, and was “one of 14 schools annexed to enhance desegregation efforts,”
according to the Little Rock district website. It became a magnet school 13 years later and is the
newest high school in the district.
Information for this article was contributed by Karen E. Segrave of the Arkansas Democrat-
Gazette.
This article was published May 26, 2010 at 5:38 a.m.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 05/26/2010