Officials with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse say they had no idea there were structural problems at St. Louis Roman Catholic Church in Oswego. But others say the problems were evident for years.
And today, the church lies in a heap of red bricks and lumber at the corner of East Bridge and Fourth streets.
The church has been closed and vacant since Dec. 31, 2000.
The 168-year-old building collapsed at about 5 p.m. Sunday, crushing a couple of cars belonging to Harborfest vendors and forcing an early end to festival events in the East Park across the street.
Danielle Cummings, speaking for the diocese, said the diocese was aware of water damage in the church, but “we weren’t aware of any structural damage.”
She said the diocese’s risk management department inspects every church building each year “inside and out” for items such as safety concerns, fire problems and vagrants living in the buildings.
St. Louis Church was last inspected about a year ago.
“There was nothing that would have given us information that there was a structural problem,” Cummings said.
But Allen Bjorkman and Justin White disagree. Oswego County Historian White, and Bjorkman, head of an arts group called Oswego Arts Collaboration, said they had been in the church and saw what they believe is structural damage.
“I was in there a few weeks ago and saw structural timber rotting” from water damage, Bjorkman said.
“There was a lot of water in the lower level on the floor and the columns along both sides were completely blown out and there was a lot of plaster on the floor,” White said.
He was last in the building about five years ago and thought the water was contributing to structural problems.
Neal Smith, Oswego’s director of building and safety code enforcement, said his theory is the large amount of rain the area has seen lately could have been a factor in the building falling down. “All that water makes materials heavier, makes materials fatigued,” Smith said.
Smith said he hadn’t been inside the church building in about four or five years. He said he has done exterior checks of the building on a regular basis.
He said the codes office relies a lot on neighbors to notify them of vacant buildings that need to be checked. “We never heard a word or anything about that building,” Smith said. “From the naked eye, it didn’t look like a problem. There were no leaning walls. I think it was a catastrophic failure.”
Oswego Arts Collaboration was in the process of buying the building from the diocese to make it into an arts center. “We’re not sure what we’re going to do now,” Bjorkman said. “How we go forward is another question.”
Oswego Mayor Randolph Bateman said city workers and employees of JWJ construction company worked from Sunday night through Monday morning to knock down the rest of the building so East Bridge Street could be reopened.
The street — also known as state Route 104 — was closed after the collapse.
Bateman said the diocese will reimburse the city for use of police, fire and department of public works employees and equipment.
The diocese also will be billed by the construction company.
It was not known yet how much that will be.
Bateman also said there was no asbestos insulation in the building, but there was a small amount of asbestos in floor tiles and roof shingles.
All of the debris was watered, so there was no chance of debris flying through the air to be inhaled by workers.
The church was built in 1842 as a Presbyterian church on an opposite corner of the street, White said. It later was moved to its present location.
In 1870, it became St. Louis Roman Catholic Church to serve the growing French-Canadian population in Oswego.
SIC: TPSS