Hoops season on road?

Damaged East Aurora High gym may need pricey repairs

More than two months after flooding in East Aurora High School's gym suspended all activities there, district officials said they'll likely have to replace the entire floor, spend close to a half-million dollars and send the boys basketball team to play nearly an entire season of away games.

Storm waters seeped into the more than 50-year-old gym in late June or early July, penetrating the floor over a weekend before school employees discovered the damage.

Workers have spent the last couple months trying to dry out the floor, but more than three-fourths of the boards have been destroyed, said Nestor Garcia, the district's director of buildings and grounds.

Garcia said the district is "looking at all options," which include replacing only parts of the floor. But in the last several weeks, representatives from five or six companies have come in to look at the floor, and "they all say the best thing to do would be to replace the (entire) floor," said district spokesman Clayton Muhammad.

The hefty project most likely won't be completed until at least mid-March, and though no one has given a clear estimate of the cost, school officials are anticipating a substantial price tag.

"All of it's going to have to be done. ... I'm going to assume it's going to be over half-a-million dollars," said Bob McCue, who heads the School Board's Buildings and Grounds Committee.

The money to pay for the floor will likely come out of the funds left over from the district's last construction project, which was slated to cost $44 million but came in about $2 million under budget.

"I think we have enough left in there to finish the gym floor," McCue said. "Let's say I'm hoping we do."

District officials also are trying to figure out how rain got into the closed gymnasium, which has never flooded over the last half-century. The gym didn't flood during the heavy storms last month, when families all over the Fox Valley pumped water out of their basements.

"There's some mystery," said McCue, who pointed to new construction at the high school where a freshman center was added this year.

Rain came in somewhere between the high school field house and the main part of the building, Muhammad said.

Meanwhile, school officials are rescheduling boys basketball games, for now making plans to play on the road for most of the year. McCue said he's pushing the district to rent bleachers so the boys can play in the high school field house.

The girls basketball team, which draws a smaller crowd, will likely play in the freshman center gym.