Fallen light pole at Norview High spurs inspections

NORFOLK

One day after school officials received notice of possible structural defects in a brand of light towers and less than a week before students return to classes, one such pole toppled at Norview High School's football stadium, crashing into empty bleachers.

No one was injured, but the collapse at 1 p.m. Thursday sent officials across South Hampton Roads scrambling Friday to check public school and city fixtures.

It also likely means all of Norview's home football games will have to be rescheduled to Saturdays or be held at other city schools' stadiums.

Norfolk workers took down the remaining three one-ton, 130-foot steel light standards as a precaution and because experts who were called in spotted signs of rust deterioration inside at least one of the poles, an indication of leaking welds, said Michael Spencer, chief operations officer of the school division. Replacement lights probably can't be installed before the end of the season.

"After those guys talked to me last night, it was a no-brainer for me to issue an order to take them down," Spencer said.

Structural engineers on Friday similarly inspected four light poles at Suffolk's King's Fork High School manufactured by the same company, Whitco Co. LP, a now-defunct Fort Worth, Texas, firm. They saw no obvious problems, but planned more tests Tuesday, said Bethanne Bradshaw, a school division spokeswoman.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued an alert Aug. 24 that the relatively new light poles made by Whitco can snap and fall, and should be inspected immediately.

The safety commission said it confirmed nine incidents of collapsing Whitco poles from about 2000 through 2006, mostly in Texas. No injuries were reported, although one pole crashed through a school gymnasium roof. The poles cracked at or near the welds that join the pole to its base plate, similar to what happened at Norview.

Norfolk was planning to hire an engineer to inspect its light poles after receiving the alert, Spencer said. Only Norview High, which in 2004 opened a new replacement facility including the stadium at 6501 Chesapeake Blvd., had the suspect poles, said Jennifer Francis, a school division spokeswoman.

Two custodians policing its grounds "heard a snap, a loud snap, and turned their attention to the stadium," Spencer said. "As they were looking, it went over."

The bleachers sustained little structural damage, he said.

"If it had to have happened, in this kind of dramatic fashion... this is probably the best scenario, " he said.

Other local school divisions and cities reached Friday said they had checked or were in the process of checking whether they had the poles. Virginia

Beach schools checked after the safety commission alert and have none, said Yolanda Jones-Howell, a spokeswoman. Chesapeake is in the middle of an inspection cycle, said Heath Covey, a city spokesman.

Norfolk sent news of the Norview collapse to building officials across Virginia as an advisory, said Lynn Underwood, the city's chief building official.

Matthew Bowers, (757) 222-3893, matthew.bowers@pilotonline.com