The new roofing work currently underway at Davidson Town Hall may have to be expanded after the roof on the auditorium section of the building sprung a leak the weekend of March 8 and 9.

Lorrie Webber, caretaker of Davidson Town Hall, said water started dripping into the auditorium through ceiling tiles during the night of March 8. He said it began dripping a “little bit more” the next morning and finally gave way the afternoon of March 9.

“There was quite a bit of water,” said Webber.

He said three quarters of the floor was covered in water from the leak that ran down all along the middle of the roof of the auditorium. Webber said they poked holes in the ceiling to get the water out and sucked it up with a floor scrubber until around 10:30 p.m. the night of March 9.

Webber added the floor in the auditorium then “started heaving” from being exposed to the water.

A few days after the flood a number of ceiling tiles in the auditorium were missing and more still in place were marked with water spots while some floor tiles had also been removed. A couple of garbage pales sat under the removed ceiling tiles on the north section of the room.

Gary Edom, administrator for the Town of Davidson, said the roofing work currently being done at Town Hall includes stripping the roof down to the boards and putting in four inches of Styrofoam insulation and re-roofing everything but the auditorium. He said the cost to do the Town Hall came in at about $170,000 and was paid through last year’s budget with the majority of the money coming out of reserves.

“We had the whole thing assessed, the auditorium and the rest of it, and we couldn’t afford to do everything or we didn’t think we could afford to do everything,” said Edom. “We opted to do this part for all this building plus the kitchen because that was originally leaking. We thought the auditorium could maybe wait if it had to, but then it started leaking. Something split open up there on the (March 8 and 9) weekend and now we have to look at what our options are.”

Edom said an insurance adjuster was scheduled to come in last week to take a look at the auditorium roof and a manager with Flynn Canada Limited, the roofing company that is doing the town hall work, is also going to take a look and report back on what is needed. He said the only event scheduled for the auditorium so far that has been affected is the March 15 Davidson Kinettes’ Ladies Night Out concert, which had been relocated to the Sacred Heart Catholic Church Parish Hall.

“Right now (there’s) nothing big I can think of (booked at the auditorium),” he said. “It depends how long this goes on. It could be weeks, who knows, but nothing big is coming up in the near future.”

To read more please see the March 17 print edition of The Davidson Leader.