A Nicholas County judge has declined to immediately stop the controversial plan to consolidate five Nicholas County public schools into two schools that share a single campus following a flood last year.
Judge James Rowe on Thursday denied a preliminary injunction that had been requested by supporters of rebuilding Richwood’s flood-damaged schools in the Richwood area instead of consolidating them into a single campus near Summersville.
Rowe did, however, agree to an injunction blocking the immediate demolition of Richwood Middle and High School.
The judge scheduled a May 10 hearing after which he still may rule to stop the consolidation based on the lawsuit’s allegations that the Nicholas board violated open meetings laws before voting in favor of the plan Tuesday.
Superintendent Donna Burge-Tetrick denies the allegations.
Some Nicholas County residents are concerned that two Richwood schools which closed after devastating floods won’t be rebuilt in the area.
According to the Charleston Gazette-Mail, Nicholas County Schools Superintendent Donna Burge-Tetrick said last week that a decision on where the schools will be located won’t be made until she collects the appropriate information.
Richwood Middle School and Richwood High School closed after late June floods ravaged the town.
Richwood Middle students are attending classes at Cherry River Elementary School and Richwood High students are at the former Beaver Elementary building. Students at another public school that closed in the county, Summersville Middle School, are attending classes in the Summersville Convention Center.
Some residents are concerned the Richwood schools may be consolidated with Summersville Middle, which is more than 40 minutes away.
Richwood Chamber of Commerce President Mary Jane Williams, who was a Richwood teacher for 36 years, said supporters of keeping the schools in the city want the board to hear their input before a decision is made.
“We’d like to be able to give, and not just to be given ‘This is what we’re doing,’ and everybody votes on it,” she said. “So we’ve met and met and met, and we’d like to see some of our elected officials come to our meetings if possible.”
Resident Tammy Coleman and Richwood Mayor Bob Henry Baber both say the community has suggested three possible locations out of the floodplain to build new Richwood schools. School board President Gus Penix said at least two of those sites haven’t been ruled out.
Asked about the possibility of consolidating the schools, Penix said “nothing is out the window.” He said the board has avoided discussing the issue on purpose as it waits for Burge-Tetrick to present data.
Coleman, who with her husband owns a Richwood funeral home, said that if the town loses its schools, then residents are going to start moving away.
“People are going to lose jobs,” she said. “We could lose businesses. This could affect my business. This could affect lives for years to come.
“We want promises. We want answers. We just want our town back. We were flooded and we have been living in devastation ever since June … but everything is coming back. We are on the mend. Now we just want our schools back.”
Elkview residents will have to wait at least two more months for a shopping center to reopen after an access bridge collapsed earlier last month during massive flash-flooding.
Beth Abruzzino, director of facilities maintenance for Plaza Management, told shopping center tenants in an email that the ownership expects construction to begin within a week and take eight weeks.
In the month since the floods, little progress has been made on the bridge that connects customers and employees to restaurants, gas stations, convenience stores and a hotel in the shopping center.
Abruzzino says the reason for the delay was that the bridge had to be permitted by multiple agencies.
NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin is heading to southern West Virginia to help out after deadly floods ravaged the region.
A news release from The Greenbrier resort says that on Thursday evening, Hamlin will hand out toys and school supplies to Greenbrier County students affected by the June 23 floods. He’ll be at the White Sulphur Springs train station.
Kyle Larson, who competes in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series, will accompany Hamlin on Thursday.
The floods killed 23 people and devastated homes, businesses and infrastructure. Greenbrier County accounted for 15 of the 23 deaths.
Authorities say that almost all of Clendenin Elementary School has sustained flood damage.
Kanawha County Commissioner Dave Hardy tells local media about 97 percent of the school was damaged during last month’s floods.
Kanawha schools Superintendent Ron Deurring says school officials will first need to speak with Federal Emergency Management Agency officials before determining when or if the school will reopen.
Whenever a building is more than 50 percent damaged, it has to be brought into compliance with national flood insurance policy. Deurring says it will cost about $3.6 million to repair the building — a cost that doesn’t include bringing it up to current codes.
Clendenin students are planned to attend six to eight portable classrooms in front of Bridge Elementary when the school year starts Aug. 8.
The West Virginia Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management says 35 schools have been impacted in some way by last month’s historic flooding.
Those schools are in the 12 counties most affected by high water- all of which were declared federal disaster areas. In some counties, classes start in just over a month. That means a tight deadline for school systems to restore what was damaged or find alternate locations for their students.
"This is it, we only have one chance and this is not how you envisioned it." – Trace Mahan, senior, Herbert Hoover High School.
Trace Mahan, a senior at Herbert Hoover High School in Clendenin, stood with a group of four other classmates outside their AA high school after trekking through an inch of mud and water left behind when 7 and a half feet of flood water inundated the first floor.
Credit Ashton Marra / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
The mud and water that caked the floors of Herbert Hoover High School last week.
The flood water destroyed the school’s gym, cafeteria, wood shop, and band room.
“It kind of hits really hard knowing, are we going to have a band to perform in? Are we going to have a choir to perform in? Are we going to get to play football games?” 17-year-old Mahan, a member of the marching band, said.
“That’s what goes through all of our minds, I mean, we know it’s going to be okay it’s just how much is it going to take to rebuild everything.”
That question- how much is it going to take to rebuild- it’s one that two weeks after the flood county officials say they still can’t answer.
Inspectors with the Federal Emergency Management Agency- or FEMA- have completed the initial damage assessment of Herbert Hoover High School, but Kanawha County Superintendent Ron Duerring maintained they are still finalizing those estimates and wouldn’t release the numbers earlier this week.
Duerring did say, though, that of the four Kanawha County schools that flooded, Herbert Hoover was the worst.
David Sneed, executive director of the West Virginia School Building Authority, said when a building takes on as much water as Herbert Hoover did, there are plenty of concerns.
“There’s the obvious, there’s mold, the electrical systems, all the electrical wiring. There’s rust, there’s potential for failure of all the systems in the building,” he said. “It could be even some duct work, exhaust pipe, vents, everything’s gotten water in it, even inside the block. I’m sure there’s silt and there’s water.”
That kind of cleanup and replacement, Sneed said, can be incredibly expensive.
Credit Ashton Marra / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Acoustic guitars strewn across the floor of the Herbert Hoover High School band room which reportedly took on 7 and a half feet of flood water.
Duerring said the county has insurance that should help pay for some of the cost, is doing some fundraising, and could receive FEMA assistance, but even with all of those funding possibilities, the superintendent says he will also ask Sneed and the SBA for emergency aid.
The SBA awards matching dollars annually to help counties pay for new school construction, but they also have a much smaller account to aid in emergency projects like flood cleanup.
That account has about $5 million in it, but only $2 million can be given to a single county, and there are other counties that will be asking for help.
Herbert Hoover is just one of the 35 schools impacted by the storm and Sneed said his agency has heard from each of the 12 counties declared federal disaster areas that they intend to apply for SBA emergency funding.
Sneed said his board will have to weigh the small amount of money they can award with the amount of good they can do, but called the potential for Herbert Hoover to be ready by the first day of school “questionable.”
Credit Kara Lofton / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
The concession stand on Richwood High School’s athletic campus.
Duerring has pledged to make that happen for all of his schools.
“We’re very committed to getting these schools up and running and bringing our kids back in and making sure every student can start school on August 8,” he said. “There may be a different schedule, it may be a different scenario, but we will get our kids back to school.”
Duerring was scheduled to have a meeting with FEMA this week to finalize damage estimates that he says could be released Friday.
Emergency funding requests are due to the SBA by July 15.
