WARSAW, N.Y. (WKBW) — On Tuesday, several minutes of devastating hail fell across Warsaw. All that ice left “thousands of holes” in the roof at Warsaw Middle High School, requiring immediate repairs.
“It was crazy, one minute the sun was shining, the next minute everything goes dark,” Angel Fitzpatrick, a neighbor to the school, said. “[The hail was] anywhere from a nickel to a golf ball, some of them were quite large.”
“It was one of the most intense storms I had ever seen,” Warsaw superintendent Matt Wilkins said. “Thousands of holes...I would say most classrooms that were on the second floor did get some water. There is some damage in there, but a lot of it was related to the ceiling tiles and things like that.”
Wilkins told me all those leaks led to school being canceled on Wednesday, as an emergency fix began.
On Thursday, kids were back in the classroom, with a crane outside and roughly 40 roofers on top of the building.
“We are called to have rain for 5-7 days, starting [Thursday] evening, so we have a small window to get everything back together,” Wilkins said. “Right now is a 48-hour scramble to get a temporary roof put down.”
Wilkins told me he got the okay from the school’s insurance to start work. He doesn’t know yet how much this could cost the district.
Q: “Do you envision missing any more school as a result of this?”
Wilkins: “As long as the weather holds off for us, we will be in pretty good shape.”
