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WILKES-BARRE — The rumors circulating about a week ago sounded pretty dire: Did you hear? Something shifted by, like, a foot in Meyers High School cafeteria and they’ll have to close the school!” Well, not so much.
Both Wilkes-Barre Area School District Superintendent Brian Costello and solicitor Ray Wendolowski said that, yes, an oral report on a recent structural inspection — done periodically to make sure the aging building is still safe — found some expansion of existing cracks and other issues, but nothing serious enough to keep students from returning in the fall.
Wendolowski said a written report would be forthcoming from Thomas Leonard of TBL Engineering, the firm that has been conducting the inspections. Wendolowski provided a copy of that report, about a page and a half of single-spaced type, this week.
To answer the rumors, begin at the end.
“At this time no critical structural deficiencies endangering the occupied areas are apparent,” Leonard wrote
The physical health of Meyers has been debated for years, with mixed results. A 2007 study determined the building sat on soft soil that shifts with the rise and fall of the Susquehanna river, causing the building to settle more than it would have. An architect declared it unwise to renovate the building as a result.
But a study several years later determined most of the settlement had occurred decades ago, and that the building had since been stable.
In the new report, Leonard notes that in 2014 “it was my opinion that those settlements occurred during construction of the school,” he wrote.
Yet a recent inspection discovered new settlement in several locations, including expanded masonry cracks in the wood shop and cracks in the second- and third-floor corridors. Leonard suggested new shifts may have been caused by nearby work.
“Areas near the stair adjacent to the auditorium were found to have settled up to ½ inch since our 2014 survey. Previous floor elevation surveys between 1995 and 2014 had indicated no movement in the floors.” The settlement since 2014 “was likely induced by dynamic compaction operations at the nearby Geisinger site in 2015.”
Some areas of the building’s steel frame were also exposed for inspection, which included a review by two men from the city’s code enforcement office. Most steel beams were “found to be in good condition.” A beam in the official’s locker room had been exposed to some water infiltration but was “in fair condition.”
One of the biggest concerns voiced in the new report was not entirely new: Loose marble tiles above the grand staircase. Leonard notes he has been monitoring that and several areas of concern “since a settlement was discovered earlier this year,” and advised the panels “must be addressed prior to the start of the new school year.”
The school board has voted to consolidate grades nine through 12 at Meyers and Coughlin high schools into a new building. Critics insist Meyers can still be renovated economically. Leonard’s new report does not say the school must be closed immediately, but it lists a litany of problems and says “the conditions continue to deteriorate.”