St. Mary Roman Catholic Church

Well we have had a lot of activity today, and we wanted to show our parishioners some pictures of the church after the pew removal.

But first, great news!  The roof has finally been patched over the tabernacle.  Our building contractor initially tried to do the work last Wednesday, but like so many others before, they were mystified by the precarious situation of the bricks atop the compromised beam.  Here is a picture of the problem area:

You may be able to see the problem.  The vertical steel beam was bent in the fire into an "S" shape.  Then, a horizontal beam connected to it was also bent by the heat of the fire, but mounds of loose bricks sit on top of it!  These bricks are just balancing on this steel beam at this point, and any movement could dislodge them.  Hard to see in this picture, an external brick wall is above these loose bricks, and it is not altogether certain what will happen to that wall if these bricks are dislodged.  And if the bricks fall, it is sure to damage the scaffolding which sits in the tabernacle area.  So far, every expert who has looked at the area has been reticent to attempt a fix, since the situation is so precarious.

However, the experts at Pelletier Builders met as a group a couple of nights ago to design a solution, and today they implemented it.  The roof is now covered with some plastic tarp.  They are not very worried about its stability, except perhaps in high wind.  So make sure you are adding prayers for pleasant weather to your intention list!

Now, our pews... First, we will offer a few pictures of the pews themselves before they were taken apart, so that you can see some of the damage.  This first picture shows the splitting that has started to occur because of the water.  Because so many of the pews split right down the middle like this, we learned that the pews were put together by joining two separate boards together.

Here is a close-up of the split in the wood.

When the workmen started to move the pews, they noticed the mildew and mold that was starting to form between the pews and the columns and the walls.

Yesterday, the team worked to dismantle the pews, so that they would fit into the dumpsters.  Today the pews were evacuated from the church, leaving us with an empty floor plan (except for the scaffolding).  The workers said that the pew damage looked even worse in the sunlight, as opposed to the darkness of the church.  Here are some pictures of the floor of the church now.

In some of these pictures, you can see portions of the floor have been cut up.  The water soaked into the floor boards so much that our contractor estimated that the floor grew an amazing 30 inches wider!  With nowhere to allow for that widening floor (sadly the walls would not expand outward--ha!), the floor buckled up as much as 12 inches off the floor.  The construction crew cut away parts of the floor to allow for the new scaffolding and construction that will be occurring soon.

And here is a shot coming in from the main doors of the church, looking forward toward the altar.

One piece of good news was given to us: the contractors were able to set aside three of the most undamaged pews for our preservation.  These include the two handicapped pews and a third shorter pew.  What we will do with these pews is to-be-determined, but it is nice to have been able to preserve them!

Our cleaning crew also spent time onsite today, spraying to remove the developing mildew/mold on the woodwork.  And our last big statue in the church, our St. Anne, was today being studied by our contractors.  They think that they will be able to relocate her early next week for her safety!