SANTA CLAUS – Apart from fiercely hazardous road conditions, the arctic blast over Christmas weekend brought more than its share of other hazards. Many homes, businesses and churches found their heating implements strug- gling to keep pace. Several more awoke to find breaks in their water lines as pipes burst from the frigid conditions.
North Spencer School Corpora- tion suffered such issues in three of its schools, but Lincoln Trail Elemen- tary undoubtedly got the worst of it.
Facilities Director Marc Schum reported breaks within the sprin- kler systems of Heritage Hills High School and Nancy Hanks Elemen- tary. Both of these incidents were contained and relatively minor. Unfortunately, the term “relatively” comes in reference to the situation at LTE, which flooded extensively and will be unable to accommodate students for some time heading into the spring semester.
It is not known exactly when the break occurred. Schum discovered the unfolding situation on Christ- mas morning, while performing maintenance checks at local schools to see how they held up after the deep freeze.
“I walked in here at 11 o’clock Christmas morning to check the boilers and walked into a mess,” he said. “We know it started sometime between Friday evening and Sunday morning. There was water every- where in the school when I got here, so it ran for a while.”
With the entire school inundated with a few inches of water, the full extent of the damage was still being calculated even as repair efforts began. Carpet has been stripped
throughout all the hallways and cor- ridors, with wall cavities opened up to be dried out with fans. Insulation impacted by the flooding will also have to be replaced. Classrooms were something of an open question at first. Some seem to have weathered the storm comparatively well, but moisture checks have shown that most will require extensive repairs as well. That could add a fair amount of work to an already busy schedule.
“There’s more (moisture) in the classrooms than we thought,” said Schum. “We do hope we’ll be able to save the vinyl tile in the classrooms. They were put in within the last two years, and were all carpet before.”
Pretty much every surface area covered by carpet has either been stripped or lined with heavy-duty fans to dry out. One bit of good news is that most of the books in the library seem to have survived, as the water did not quite reach the top of the lowest shelves. Another cold comfort is that the newly revamped school gym lacked carpeting, mak- ing cleanup relatively simple. By the middle of last week, it was also the only part of the school almost free of the roar of fans and ventilation equipment.
It is not yet known when LTE will be reopened, but plans are under- way to accommodate students in other buildings for the time being. Updates will be made available as soon as possible.
While a great deal of work lies ahead, Schum said the North Spen- cer community has good reason to be proud. After his unfortunate Christ- mas morning discovery, Schum notified Maintenance Director Tim Thompson, who quickly mobilized staff from across the district to help get the flooding under control. They were soon joined by volunteers from throughout the community willing to put aside holiday activities to lend a hand. Schum said it was a marvel that the initial responders and their helpers were able to get most of the standing water out of the school so quickly, especially over the holidays. “Our North Spencer crew has been amazing,” he said.
Get a copy of this week’s Spencer County Leader to see an update from from Superintendent Dan Scherry, including plans for a return to class.
Story by Don Steen
Photos by Don Steen and Annie Oxley
