Santa Ana, CA – Administrators have recently received several complaints from Santa Ana Valley High School staff about a strong smell of gas in a building where an explosion took place Tuesday morning, according to two sources close to the situation.
The fiery explosion, in a boiler room adjacent to the girls’ locker room, ripped open the building’s roof and led four students to be hospitalized for headaches or ringing in their ears, according to news reports. The approximately 7:30 a.m. blast also sent a door flying about 75 feet, authorities told the LA Times.
A spokeswoman for the district said there have been no complaints about a gas smell coming from the building.
However, as officials investigate whether it was caused by a gas line or water heater, sources tell Voice of OC that administrators at the school and Santa Ana Unified School District have been warned about a gas stench in the building, including the locker room area where the boiler room is located.
“They were aware of that building,” said an employee who requested anonymity. “There have been many complaints about it.”
Another employee, who also requested anonymity, said “the administration was warned multiple times” and complaints from school staff have been taking place for at least several months, and likely longer.
SAUSD spokeswoman Deidra Powell disputed that account Tuesday afternoon, saying the district had received zero complaints about gas smells related to the building.
That was not the case, said Powell. That’s something you take very seriously.
If you warn somebody about it you do something about it, she added. Because with something like this everybody is in danger…there weren’t any complaints that we were aware of.”
The district declined to make any of the boiler room’s maintenance records or work orders available for review on Tuesday.
A Voice of OC reporter first asked Powell around 1:30 p.m. to inspect the documents, but district officials had not provided any by their main office’s close of business, four hours later.
The California Public Records Act states that upon a request for disclosable public records, the agency shall make the records promptly available.
Asked about the delay in providing the records, Powell said the district has more important issues to focus on.
That’s not even a priority for us right now, she said. Our focus is on the students and the staff. We’re not interested in that piece.
SAUSD is overseeing the investigation into what caused the explosion. Powell said Tuesday afternoon that she did not know when the gas line was last repaired.
She added that the hospitalized students were released Tuesday, and that the area around the explosion remains shut down as mechanical engineers evaluate the structure.
Right now our focus is that our students have a normal two days until the end of the school year, said Powell.
While it’s still unclear what contributed to the explosion, what is known is that deferred maintenance spending has been an issue at SAUSD and school districts throughout the state.
SAUSD’s deferred maintenance budget has gone from $7.1 million to $2 million since fiscal year 2009.