SCOTT TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- “It peeled the rubber roof back and knocked some of the edging off here.”
Lakeland School District Superintendent Bill King pointed out the damage done to the field house by the heavy winds and rain in the overnight hours into Monday morning. Debris from the building was scattered around it.
“Some of the insulation and there were some PVC pipes that fell down and the water seeped right now into our locker room,” said King.
That water sat in puddles in the boys' locker room, and items inside sustained damage as well.
King says their maintenance worker had just refurbished it last summer.
“Just repainted this whole locker room, the lockers, the walls. The floor was redone, and now, it's kind of a mess,” said King.
Power was cut to the building, and now, the facility is off limits to student athletes.
This comes as the track and field team is preparing for a major home meet against Dunmore on Wednesday.
The stakes are high as both the Lakeland Chiefs and Dunmore Bucks are undefeated.
“I'm a pole vaulter on the team, and the poles are in there, and I don't know if I'm going be able to get to them because they told us we weren't allowed to go in,” said senior Corah Krantz.
“It's tough because we lost access to our weight room,” said head coach Art Davis. “We can't do any lifting there. It really hurt. Our field guys really love to be in there all the time.”
The district has plans to accommodate both teams during the competition.
“We're going to utilize the high school, which is right here, and we're able to actually cordon off the rest of the high school so they could just go in and use our locker rooms and our bathrooms and come right back up,” said King.
“It was a little bit of a setback to begin with, but we're working through and keep on going,” said senior Jacob Frazier.
The district has contacted its insurance provider about the damage and is waiting to hear back from a contractor on an estimate for repairs.