Children, staff escape when cafeteria roof collapsed

BELEN — Torrential rains last week flooded streets in the Hub City and brought down part of the roof at a local elementary school.

Shortly before 5 p.m., on Tuesday, June 24, Belen Consolidated Schools Superintendent Lawrence Sanchez received word the cafeteria roof at Dennis Chavez Elementary — the former H.T. Jaramillo campus on Esperanza Drive — had collapsed.

“We did have students and staff there but no one was hurt,” Sanchez said. “Our insurance has done an initial assessment and will be back on Thursday (July 3) to provide more information. They will determine the building’s stability and tell us what parts we can and can’t use.”

When the rain began coming down hard that day, Louisa Gabaldon thought they should alert parents in case of flooding. Gabaldon works for the Rio Grande Educational Cooperative, which provides all day child care during the summer. This year, the program was located at DCE.

There were 13 children at the school with four adults, including Gabaldon.

“It was just pouring and I noticed something looked weird with the ceiling. I asked someone, ‘Does the roof look shorter,’” Gabaldon recalled.

Water began leaking from the ceiling near the wall, so she took a trashcan over to catch the water. When she looked up, Gabaldon could see the wall had separated from the roof by several inches.

“It looked like some caulking was coming down and I could hear something crumbling,” she said. “I thought, ‘That’s not good.’”

She advised her supervisor of the situation and they quickly lined up the children, prepared to leave the cafeteria.

“They really listened well, but they were scared,” she said of the children. “When we said, ‘1, 2, 3, let’s go,’ they lined up like they are supposed to. They were scared. Some were crying.”

The children were quickly taken out of the cafeteria and into the gym vestibule. Fearing there was more going on than a bad roof, Gabaldon called 911.

“The officer — Officer Chavez from the Belen Police Department — got there fast,” she said. “It was only a couple minutes after we got out that the roof fell. Two more minutes and it would have gotten us.”

The children and staff were taken to the Belen Community Center at Eagle Park, where their parents met them.

“The kids were glad to see their parents and the parents were concerned obviously. Our first priority was to keep them safe,” Gabaldon said. “I really want to thank the police and fire departments; they we excellent. I’m glad when I said we shouldn’t stay here, everyone listened. God had my back.”

In the meantime, power has been turned off to the building and it has been fenced off to prohibit access, the superintendent said.

DCE was one of the district’s summer lunch sites, as well as the location for a summer reading program and child care provided by the Rio Grande Educational Cooperative. Those programs have been relocated to Central Elementary, 600 W. Picard Ave., Belen.