JFK High School in Bronx, damaged in explosion, reopens

NEW YORK -- A Bronx high school damaged in an explosion is structurally sound, according city officials, and opened for school Wednesday.

The Aug. 20 blast blew the walls and windows off several classrooms on the sixth floor of the John F. Kennedy High School and badly burned three workers.

Officials said the damaged areas have been sealed off, and the building is safe. Air quality tests have shown there is no risk to students and staff, they said.

Seven schools, a total of 4,000 students, use the building.

Workers had been upgrading science labs at the school. Officials say the blast happened when a worker tested a gas line by lighting a match.

Mayor de Blasio visited the JFK campus in the South Bronx.

He surveyed the construction site in a restricted area of the building on the 6th floor, which was severely damaged and unlike the rest of the campus, has not reopened. "Things have gotten a lot better," he said. "What a difference a few weeks makes." He said officials initially thought there was "no physical way" JFK could reopen for the school year, but managed to get it ready.

Deputy Chancellor Elizabeth Rose and the principals of all seven schools accompanied him. Rose said every student at the schools is being accommodated in the building. De Blasio asked what it would take to get the remaining area of the building back on line.

Rose said the biggest issue would be rebuilding the exterior walls, which were blown out by the explosion. She said the worst hit area, where science labs were, would likely take until next September to complete, but they will try to get other exterior rooms back open sooner than that. "This whole area is entirely cut off from the students?" de Blasio asked. Rose said yes, it's "sealed off" and there is only one key which the custodian has.

She said that mobile carts are providing science lab tools to replace the destroyed facilities.

De Blasio took an up close look at the area where the explosion blew out the walls, which now have just blue tarps hanging where the walls used to be. He then walked over to the other side of the room to look out the window at solar panels, which he had visited this school to unveil last year. A staffer told him they generate 25% of the campus's electricity.