‘There’s no handbook for this.’ Schools, libraries struggle to reopen after flood damage.
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E. KY schools, libraries struggle to reopen after flood damage
Many Eastern Kentucky school districts impacted by July’s catastrophic flooding are struggling to reopen.
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At Martha Jane Potter Elementary, a stack of desks and chairs stood in neat lines like soldiers, while industrial vacuums hummed inside to clean out water and mud that rushed through the school on July 28.
When Letcher County schools finally go back on Sept. 21, Martha Jane Potter students won’t be at their school. School will start at Fleming Neon Middle School until their own is deemed ready.
Six of eight schools in Letcher County flooded on July 28, so in many ways, it’s a miracle they’re going back before the end of September. Teachers and staff started this week to try to prepare for many students whose lives have been shattered, even as their own were too.
“There’s no handbook for this,” said Superintendent Denise Yonts. “But we know we need to get everyone back into a routine, then we’ll know better how to meet their needs.”
Reopening has required intensive work and planning — everything from getting a records restoration company to try to restore student files to figuring out how to fit West Whitesburg Elementary students into separate space at Letcher County Central High School. West Whitesburg Middle School students are now headed to Cowan Elementary.
But in all the counties hit by such devastating and deadly flooding in July, that work is fueled with incredible energy from educators who saw how much closed schools hurt everyone during COVID. They know traumatized children will be helped by the normalcy and socialization of school because they saw what happened two years ago when they closed.
“Educators have this incredible sense of urgency to get school going and get a sense of normalcy,” said Education Commissioner Jason Glass, who traveled through flood-affected districts in recent weeks. “We have seen incredible efforts put forward.”
Quick thinking
In Perry County, for example, school staff and volunteers scrambled to reopen A.B. Combs Elementary, a 70s-era building, so that it could be used to house Robinson Elementary and Buckhorn, a rural K-12 school, both heavily damaged.
Robinson Elementary Principal Jamie Fugate’s own home was flooded, forcing he and his wife and their three kids to relocate to his in-laws house. Like many others, he worked on A.B. Combs every day, and worked on his own house every night.
Tuesday was the first day the school opened.
“It’s been a little hectic but everyone is so happy, there’s been a real positive vibe,” Fugate told me Tuesday afternoon.
COVID closures taught him how much in person education meant to his feelings of worth as an educator. “I really rely on that to feel valuable,” he said, “and I can see how my staff and students rely on school to have their own sense of worth.”
Not that virtual school was an option anyway — all the Chromebooks were destroyed and many families have been living in tents without electricity or WiFi.
The new school has counselors on hand to help kids emotionally, and the family resource centers will have a better sense of what families need as they see children every day.
“That was the number one goal of our board — we wanted to keep those schools together,” Fugate said. “It’s not ideal but it was the best situation.”
Not defeated
In Knott County, school is scheduled to start on Sept. 19, but Superintendent Brent Hoover said the athletics schedule went ahead as planned, providing one piece of the school year to overflow crowds who showed up for football and volleyball games.
The flooded schools are getting donated furniture and supplies from Jefferson and Fayette Counties, which will allow them to reopen.
“The kids I have talked to are so excited about coming back to school,” Hoover said. “Being together is of the utmost importance.”
Hoover said the learning loss from COVID has not been helped by this disruption and trauma, but they will again focus on instruction and remediation for those students who need it most.
Some roads are still impassable; school buses will run the main roads to pick up kids, which will also make harder. “But we’re doing everything we can to get them back.”
Libraries it hard
K-12 schools weren’t the only centers of learning affected by floods. Places like Appalshop in Letcher County and the Hindman Settlement School in Knott sustained huge damage to their buildings and to their priceless stores of Appalachian archives of both film and writing.
Three of the four branches of the Letcher County Public Library system were damaged; the small library of Fleming-Neon will have to be built back from the studs after a tree carried by floodwaters crashed through a window, allowing five feet of water to reach nearly all the bookshelves. Libraries are crucial in disasters because they provide computers to those who have lost power or need help with, in this case FEMA paperwork.
At the Harry Caudill branch in Whitesburg, the basement flooded, said director Alita Vogel, but thanks to volunteers, it was soon cleaned up so the library could be used as a cooling station or a place to use computers or the fax machine. Some people find comfort in being able to check out books.
“Basically, we try to be a safe, comforting place with water, coffee and snacks available,” Vogel said. “There are so many people who are still struggling.”
The Knott Library had to move to an empty building, a former pharmacy, outside of Hindman with some of its books.
Director Tammy Owens said the Lexington library sent down some computers and desks, which allowed them to reopen.
“People have come in for books, but alot of people have come to use the computers, or make copies,” she said.
What next?
The General Assembly allocated $213 million for emergency aid; $40 million of it for schools to be used in a variety of ways. But Glass said renovation and rebuilding will have to be taken on a case by case basis.
“What we saw is there’s a huge variety of impact,” Glass said. Some schools can be cleaned up and reopened or renovated. Others, like Robinson Elementary, have structural damage from the water, and may have to be torn down. “It’s going to be a site by site decision,” he said.
That will have to happen in concert with longer range plans about rebuilding, particularly homes, to make sure they’re not still in the path of floods the next time they certainly will come.
Glass hopes they have time to plan, just like he hopes exhausted educators — who do so much for so many despite constant criticism from society — can stop to take a breath.
“It’s exhausting to think about the wake of COVID, the culture wars, and now you have tornadoes and floods,” he said. “I do continue to be inspired by the ways I see educators picking things up and putting things together and making it work. That’s what educators do.”
This story was originally published September 8, 2022 at 9:46 AM.
