By Bruce Piekarsa
Website Editor
“With the courts we’re using, the fence is too close to the courts and the backside of the court is too close to the area that’s in play,” Tan said. “But I don’t think that affected the tryouts. Although the situation is annoying I don’t blame anyone—we’re just trying to work around it.”
The Santa Ana winds roared through Temple City on Jan. 6, downing trees and temporarily taking out power while fueling the Palisades and Eaton fires.
The strong winds took down two trees on campus, one in between the 100s buildings and media center and the other by the band room and bike racks. The tennis court, baseball field and construction fences sustained significant damage. The winds also destroyed a shed and portable baseball batting cage.
“Our custodians, maintenance and operations have been fantastic about helping clean up the campus,” Principal Elena Li said. “The next day after the winds damaged the campus they were cleaning and helped the other sites in our district too. They were doing all of that masked because of the air quality—it’s amazing and the admin really appreciates their work.”
The district closed schools on Jan. 8, 9 and 10 but hoped to reopen sooner because by law, school must be open for 180 days.
Director of Facilities and Maintenance Anthony Salazar checked the campus on Tuesday night. The next morning at 6:00 a.m., Salazar and his staff reassessed and made sure the campus was safe. On Thursday, they focused on the perimeter.
“As we were developing a game plan to address all of the damage, it could get very stressful, but luckily we have great staff,” Salazar said. “Everybody pitched in and really stepped up and gave it their all.”
To combat the poor air quality, the staff, maintenance, custodial, grounds and delivery drivers installed all of the air purifiers and filters in stock and left them running. On top of the HEPA filters in each classroom, over 350 filters were installed. The custodians also used backpack blowers and hoses to get rid of ash and debris.
Four of the school’s six tennis courts are no longer in use. Tennis Coach Tommy Tan is using Sports Medicine teacher Anthony Garcia’s athletic trainer room to store his tennis carts. Since only two courts are available for practice, the JV and varsity teams now practice separately.
The damage to the tennis courts and baseball field prevent either sport from hosting any home games. It is unclear whether Boys Tennis will need to relocate every home game as repairs are still being discussed, whereas the Baseball team has already turned their entire season into away games.
“The winds completely destroyed our small storage shed,” Co-head Coach Barry Bacon said. “They also damaged our portable hitting cage, which is about a $10,000-$12,000 expense. It’s a pretty important piece of equipment for our team.”
Since the winds and fires affected Pasadena High School much more, the baseball team has asked for donations of snack bar items to support Pasadena’s team. The snack bar is a big fundraiser that helps maintain the school’s baseball field, but since TCHS isn’t having any home games, there isn’t a need for extra income.
“We don’t have the personnel or space [for TCHS] to become a donation center, but ASB really wanted to help out the victims of the fires and I applaud them,” Li said. “The damage caused by this event is unfortunate, but we used our experience from the 2011 windstorms, and we’ll learn from this experience moving forward as well.”