Work underway to replace Greater Latrobe gym floor after pool maintenance mishap

Greater Latrobe Senior High’s main gym is getting an unplanned update of its floor after the wood surface was damaged by water during the summer.

Work on the sub-floor was mostly complete before the Labor Day break and installation of a new maple floor surface was expected to begin this week, according to Superintendent Mike Porembka.

“Everything has worked out to this point,” he said of the project. “It’s one thing if you’re planning to replace your gym floor, but when it happens unexpectedly in the middle of the summer and you’re trying to get on somebody’s job list.”

The gym floor was damaged in late June when water overflowed from the school’s nearby swimming pool and ran under connecting doors and into the gym, said Porembka. He attributed the incident to human error during pool maintenance.

Once the damage was discovered, Porembka said, district staff stopped the flow but water also damaged locker rooms and team rooms used for basketball and wrestling programs.

“We got a restoration company in, and they were able to save parts of the basketball room,” Porembka said.

He said insurance the district has through CM Regent is expected to cover the cost of the gym floor replacement and related restoration, minus a $25,000 deductible that Greater Latrobe will pay.

A dollar estimate of the damage wasn’t immediately available from district officials.

Porembka expressed hope that the school’s gym area would be back to normal “in a month or so.”

In the meantime, he said, home girls volleyball games have been relocated to an auxiliary gym and some practices are being held in the gym at Latrobe Elementary School.

The varsity volleyball team is slated to host Penn Hills at 7:30 p.m. Thursday.

During the 2019-20 school year, Greater Latrobe replaced the roof on the senior high gym’s upper wing at a cost of about $1 million and paid about $34,000 to update the sound system in the pool and gym.