Benito Juarez school annex unusable after storm rips off roof

For several months, students and teachers inside Benito Juarez Community Academy in Pilsen have seen bits of metal come loose from their seven-year old annex and sometimes they’ve had to put down buckets to catch leaks.

Monday night, after a violent wind storm, a huge chunk of the annex roof ripped away. Students and staff arrived in the morning to find the skin of the roof peeled back and dangling down to the ground.

No one was harmed, according to CPS, and the extent of the damage is still being assessed. Classes that meet in the classrooms in the walkway and annex have been relocated to the main school building.

Steve Vidal is an art teacher who teaches in the annex. He said staff have had problems with the roof for a number of months.

“We’ve had pieces of metal flying from the roof,” he said, staring at the mess Tuesday. “You could hear the wind noise howling while you were in the classroom.”

Vidal said metal pieces “several feet long” had come loose from the roof in recent months.

“Thankfully nobody was outside at the time,” he said.

School administrators weren’t speaking about the situation, and referred all questions to CPS headquarters, which issued a statement a few hours later:

“Last night’s storm caused damage to the elevated walkway connecting the two buildings at Juarez High School. The walkway is being assessed, and the school has temporarily relocated affected classrooms to ensure instruction is not interrupted,” CPS spokesman Michael Passman said in an email.

The annex, opened in 2010, is essentially a skybridge containing classrooms; it connects two different parts of the school. It was rendered unusable by the storm damage, Vidal said.

It wasn’t long before pictures of the damage – and comments — were being circulated on social media.

“It was a windy evening, but roofs shouldn’t be collapsing at CPS schools, especially ones that were built only 7 years ago,” Wendy Katten, director of the parent group Raise Your Hand, posted on Facebook.

“And the mayor should not go on a $729M campaign spending spree for new construction when there are so many existing capital needs at the district.”