A 100-year-old church in Echo Park has closed its doors indefinitely because of the risk of a roof collapse.
Rick Wulf, the pastor at United Methodist Church, told KNX News’ Nataly Tavidian the damage was caused by recent storms that hammered Southern California.
“In some ways, the collapse of that ceiling was a blessing because we wouldn't have known what the condition of the understructure was if the ceiling hadn't collapsed. And so this revealed to us something that we needed to know. And I'm glad we do know it even though it's bad,” he said.
Wulf said this doesn’t just impact the church, but the community as well.
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“We've had groups, about 20 groups, that meet here that have had to move elsewhere,” he said. “We provide services for the homeless. We've had to cancel all of those right now.”
The church is holding services online and throughout various locations in the city. It’ll cost around $200,000 just to make it safe for people to step back into the church.
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