Wismar Secondary to open tomorrow

Sep 17, 2017 News

The Wismar Christianburg Secondary School (Multi) will be resuming sessions tomorrow after a three day closure to facilitate rehabilitation to a section of the roof that was ripped off during a freak story Tuesday.
Students who had turned up for school on Wednesday were sent home due to damp and wet conditions at the school. There were puddles of water in several classrooms.
Later on Wednesday a decision was taken to suspend classes for the remainder of the week after a meeting with Regional Education Officer, Marcia Paddy Andrews.
In an exclusive interview with Kaieteur News, Principal Cleveland Thomas said that emergency works commenced on the roof early Thursday morning and are expected to be complete in time for the Monday morning resumption of classes.
He expressed satisfaction with the works being carried out by Linden businessman and contractor, Beresford Harry. Thomas said that rafters were replaced and everything is being bolted down as he had suggested earlier.
“I would like the entire roof to be re-done, using the new standard procedures for construction, where things would be bolted down. Maybe we might have to change the design of the roof. We could do the repairs in stages or phases. Instead of doing the entire school, we divide it into sections because it’s a pretty large building.”
Thomas said that if the entire roof was to be done in one ‘block’ the students would have to be shifted to another location.
Following the freak storm on Tuesday, Regional Chairman Rennis Morian and a team that included Regional Vice Chairman Elroy Adolph, Deputy REO Maylene Stephens, and two engineers attached to the RDC, paid a visit to the school to assess the damage to the roof and make recommendations for its rehabilitation.
It was the consensus that the situation was an emergency and that remedial action had to be taken immediately.
Morian said that though taking care of the damage to the school will affect Regional funding, it is something that has to be taken care of as a matter of emergency.
“This is an emergency, so it means the way forward can’t be the normal procedure for the way forward. Everything has to be fast tracked, because we don’t want the children to be out of school for a protracted period.”
Tuesday afternoon a freak storm which hit shortly after classes were dismissed, demolished the roof and rafters of an entire section of the building.
Thomas said that the very section that was most heavily affected by the storm was repaired over the recent August holidays.
Students of the WCSS turned up for classes as usual on Wednesday but were greeted by classrooms with pools of water and wet furniture.
Rehabilitative works are also ongoing at the Upper Demerara Hospital and the Blue Berry Hill Nursery School.
Several buildings were left minus zinc sheets in the wake of the storm.
According to Chairman Rennis Morian, more than 20 buildings on Blue Berry Hill were hit by the storm.
Several buildings in other areas including Christianburg, Wisroc, Retrieve and Rainbow city were also affected. A few houses were reportedly dashed to the ground, while a coconut tree landed inside a house in Poker Street. Fortunately no was injured.