Just saw this on wral.com, thought I'd pass it along for those who have kids at West. Fire Claims Trailer Classroom at W. Johnston High Posted: Today at 11:11 a.m. Updated: Today at 11:16 a.m. Benson, N.C. — A portable classroom outside West Johnston High School caught fire before school hours Thursday morning. No one was inside at the time, and no injuries were reported. According to Crystal Roberts, Johnston County School District public information officer, the central heating unit in the classroom failed to turn off after the room was warm, causing a small fire in the ceiling. Firefighters removed the ceiling tiles and extinguished the fire. All similar classrooms on the campus are being inspected, Roberts said. Classes scheduled to be held in the damaged trailer will be relocated.
I wonder of that room was used by a specific teacher. Years ago when I was teaching in Virginia Beach I got a call early Mother's Day morning to come to the school. Some kids had broken into portables overnight and torched the one I taught out of. The only thing that could be salvaged was some papers in the file cabinet. Volunteers were wonderful to copy all my papers that were burnt around the edges and salvage as much as they could. Another school sent a gift certificate to replace a few of my personal supplies. Insurance covered most of what I lost but it was a pain to go back through and try to inventory everything (so teachers keep inventory or at least pictures of your classroom...you may be amazed how much stuff you have there when you really stat thinking about it). People from state agencies scambled to get replacements for some of the special equipment some of my students used. It was no fun being displaced for the remainder of the year but people really helped make a bad situation as good as it could be. Hopefully parents of students at WJHS will inquire to see if there was a teacher using that classroom who could use some similiar assitance.
The fire actually happened on first block, electrical in nature...smoke, no flames. Nothing was lost but a few ceiling tiles and insulation. From the outside you can't even tell anything happened.
I've taught in some of those "portables". The thermostats are too accessible to students. I guess I miss the humor in the thermostat being reset to 90 degrees and then down to 50 in the space of three blocks, by immature brats. I'd recommend that the thermostats be encased and secured.
Fortunately it wasn't serious and happened when someone was there....if not it could have wiped out about 12-15 of those modulars if it had blazed and started jumping from one to another.
okayyy...but does anyone know why the buses and highway patrol and the 50/210 ambulance were all out front this afternoon? I went to pick up the child and BAM! there they were...and Ms. Honeycutt and a bunch of people all standing around...was everyone okay???:?:
When I saw this, my first thought was what kind of HVAC system was it, and who installed it? We had this problem TWICE at our old house and both times it was a malfunction of the system. We came home one day and it was 90 degrees inside and the heat was going full blast. Even though it was "warranty work" we still had to pay out the hiney for labor to get it fixed. The repair guy mentioned at the time that they had replaced about 200 or so of that same part and that the company knew it was a problem. We tried getting the company to refund the $ we were out, but no luck. I can't remember exactly what it was that caused it but I know my husband can tell you. I remember the defective part being partially melted. It is scary.
