FORKS — And the walls came tumbling down — eventually.
After about six hours of delays Wednesday, Darrel Gaydeski, owner of D&H Enterprises of Forks, tore into the walls of the 1956 portion of Forks High School.
The project was set to begin at 6:30 a.m., but was held up first by a permitting discrepancy and then by a mechanical problem.
Permits had to be amended when it was discovered that they were for demolition scheduled today rather than Wednesday, project manager Kasey Wyatt said.
“Everyone in Olympia they needed to talk to were in meetings but we finally got a return phone call,” Wyatt said.
After the permits were cleared, Gaydeski discovered an electrical problem in the crane he was using to tear into the building.
“So he had to get all of that fixed before we could start,” Wyatt said.
“He said it was unfortunate he didn’t know before or he could have worked on it while we were finishing getting the permit.”
The demolition work will stretch over the course of the next several weeks with the last portion to be the 1925 portion of the high school.
That part of the school was made famous in the Twilight saga — a fictional vampire series which has main characters Bella Swan and Edward Cullen meeting and falling in love there.
The exact schedule wasn’t available on Wednesday.
The construction of new buildings to replace the condemned portions of the school is expected to be completed by fall 2011.
Voters in the school district approved an $11 million construction bond issue in February for the high school.
District officials also expect to get about $7 million in state funding.
The tax rate set by the bond is about $1.18 per $1,000 assessed valuation.
That means the owner of a $200,000 home will pay an additional $236 annually in property tax.
The sign in front of the 1925 portion will be moved so that fans of the four-novel Twilight series can safely have their pictures taken during construction.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
