A State of Local Disaster Emergency has been declared by New Milford Mayor Pete Bass due to the High School roof fire earlier this month.  He says this will allow for a streamlining of decision-making process for clean up and repairs.  Department of Public Works Director Jack Healy says all of the desks are being removed from affected classrooms and cleaned, but they've run out of storage space in the cafeteria.  The desks will be brought to a warehouse temporarily. 

The contracted clean up company has activated the electrical panels on the 1st and 2nd floors after checking every circuit on those floors for safety.  One elevator is up and running and they're working on getting IT components running.  One elevator pit needs to be decontaminated because it filled with water and soot during the fire and response. 

They've done a structural analysis of the roof where the fire started and found that the structural steel is in good condition.  The roof deck needs to be replaced.  Healy notes that some support pieces warped 3 inches will be removed and replaced. 

Municipal Building Committee member Tim Clark says the committee was comfortable with the oversight in the roof replacement contract.  The architect is there every Thursday.  The manufacturer's representative is on site every day and provide daily reports to various municipal and school officials.  He says when the Fire Marshal releases a report about the fire it will be clear what the issue was and how it happened, but until then they don't know. 

400,000 square feet of roofing is being replaced, according to plans for the original replacement project.