March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Damage extensive in MDI explosion > Locker rooms likely to be closed for rest of year; activities relocated

MOUNT DESERT — The cause of an explosion early Sunday morning that wreaked havoc on a section of MDI High School is still under investigation, though authorities have linked the blast to a gas leak near a laundry room.

The explosion, which appears to have occurred in a laundry room near the boys locker room, took out a wall, blew out several windows and had a “rippling effect,” which lifted parts of the ceiling down toward the girls locker room, leaving walls leaning over and metal doors blown off their hinges, according to Union 98 Superintendent Howard Colter.

Shards of glass and scraps of debris were piled up outside the single-story section of the building near the athletic fields Monday afternoon.

“If this had occurred when students and adults were in the locker room, it would’ve been catastrophic,” Colter said.

The locker room facilities and affected areas will likely be off-limits for the rest of the school year, he said. The gymnasium located near the damaged area is marked off limits with yellow ribbon and will not be used until it is determined to be structurally sound, Colter said.

A winter holiday concert scheduled for 7 p.m. Dec. 16 will take place at the same time and date at the Mount Desert Elementary School in Northeast Harbor.

Sports practices have been relocated to local elementary schools and to the YMCA in Bar Harbor, according to high school Principal George Marnik, who said the reaction among students has been “curious” and “fairly calm.” Gym classes are temporarily meeting in classrooms and outside, weather permitting, he said.

The laundry room contained an ice machine, a washer and a clothes dryer that two years ago operated by LP gas, Colter said. The gas flowed to the laundry facility from a nearby 1,000-gallon tank, which also provides fuel to kitchen and science lab facilities, he added.

Two valves controlled the gas flow from the tank to the laundry room, one outside the building and another inside the building, Colter said. The valve outside the building was open and it is unknown whether the inside valve was open at the time of the explosion, Colter said.

While the State Fire Marshal’s Office is still investigating the cause, a prepared statement issued by the school administration, the state Fire Marshal’s Office and the Bar Harbor Fire Department said the explosion involved LP gas vapors that were ignited by an electric motor. Colter hypothesized that gas vapors in the laundry room sparked when the electric ice machine turned on to make more ice.

The last event to take place in that area of the school building before the explosion was a Saturday morning freshman basketball game, Colter said.

The estimated value of the damage was unknown since professionals are still assessing the extent of structural damages and school staffers are establishing an inventory of damaged equipment.

Contractors on site Monday afternoon said they questioned whether the roof above the damaged areas would hold up with a heavy load of snow, and worked to reinforce damaged trusses.

Anna Healy, a ninth-grade student from Bar Harbor said, “I think it’s really scary because we could’ve been in an assembly and it could’ve been devastating.”


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