Summer rainstorm floods auditorium, dampens drama department dollars

by Whitney Keyes

When Tech Director Ted Weir walked into the auditorium June 26, he found himself looking at 430 gallons of water.

"There was 190 gallons of water pumped out of the backstage scene shop, and 240 gallons in the actual stage area,” Weir said.

The cause of the flooding was the intense rainstorm that occurred that week. The drain that usually handles the water was covered up by the cafeteria during the last renovation, which was completed in 2001. The parking lot also sloped downward toward the auditorium, and the drain is too small to control large amounts of water. The watert hen flooded into the auditorium.

“It collected in the microphone pockets and filled the orchestra pit with four or five feet of water,” drama teacher Robyn Baker said.

Although the damage seems bad, it was greatly decreased, thanks to the Ralston Community Theater. Since the Ralston high school auditorium is under renovation, the RCT was using the MSHS theater. The set designer for RCT had placed tarps over the stage area to work on the scenery.

“If the tarps hadn’t been there, the water would have flooded off of the stage, into the seating area,” Weir said.

Also to thank is the new air-conditioning system that had recently been installed. Because it runs year-round, the auditorium stayed cool and the mold didn’t spread as much. However, it did spread some and it grew all over the curtains. The main act curtain was entirely covered with a toxic mold.

“Due to its size, you can’t just throw it in a washing machine. We had to send it to the only facility in the United States, in New York. Since we took it down ourselves, the mold caused several people to have allergy problems.

I had this big rash on my arm,” Weir said.

Millard South also sent the valance to the cleaners, in case the main act curtain changes colors while being washed.

“Even if the curtain does change colors, the show must go on,” Weir said.

Weir estimated the total cost for the curtains to be cleaned at $3,000. However, that was just a fraction of the cost to get the auditorium fixed. All the water had to be pumped out of the stage, blown out of the crawlspace, the soundboard needed to be replaced and the piano in the pit was ruined. Also, among the list of destruction, the pit’s carpet was pulled up and replaced, as was the drywall.

Baker was out of town when the flood happened, but Weir immediately called Principal Jon Lopez and Baker afterhis discovery.

“Mr. Weir called me, and in turn called the maintenance staff,” Lopez said.

The auditorium needed to be finished in time for the new teacher induction on Aug. 10.

“Having a deadline really put alot of pressure on us. It wasn’t easy to get it ready in time,”custodial department head Dave England said.

Making the matter even more difficult were two more floods that happened during construction.

“We started over three times and round threewas theone thatmade it,” Weir said.

While the final cost isyet to be figured; Weir’s guess is $10,000 to $15,000.

“It’s hard, because we're still finding problems, and not all of them can be fixed yet due to time or money,” Baker said.

“It was an unfortunate event, but thankfully, itwasn’t asbad asitcould have been,” Weir said.