Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Resident comes to aid of stranded kids at day-care center

Parents arriving to pick up their kids at the Education Station Preschool on Tuesday evening found a waist-deep river separating them from their stranded children. Some could hear their preschoolers shouting to them from across the torrent of muddy water that had engulfed North Michael Way.

They had two options: watch and wait, or wade in and hope for the best.

That is, until nearby resident Jason Fernandez showed up in his 1966 Smoker Craft fishing boat.

"People were just trying to get across to the day care, and I couldn't see kids just stuck waiting in there for their moms," Fernandez said. "My trailer was already submerged, so I just unhitched (the boat) and floated it down here."

Fernandez, 31, set up a free ferry service, shuttling anxious parents from a gas station parking lot nearby to the front of the day care, picking up their children, and returning them safe and dry to their cars.

When his boat ran out of gas, he jumped in the water with his son and another neighbor, and they began pushing it across. By 9:30 p.m., Fernandez estimated that he had given rides to about 20 children and adults.

Shauna Cotton and her children, Jonathan and Josia, were among Fernandez's grateful passengers.

"If it wasn't for the boat, I don't know what I would have done," Cotton said.

With the power out at the preschool, teacher Andrea Wallace said it was a challenge to keep the kids calm as they waited for their parents. The daycare normally closes at 7 p.m., but the floods caused traffic jams that kept many parents from arriving until long after nightfall.

The center also couldn't receive incoming calls because its phone lines were dead, but Wallace said she and the other staff were able to use back-up lines to assure frantic parents that their kids were alright.

Though the water was lapping at the door of the building, Wallace said there was never any danger to the children.

"I was more worried about the parents, trying to calm them down," she said. "This was unbelievable."

Mallory Widmer, who waded across to retrieve her son Jaylen before Fernandez arrived on the scene, confirmed that the ordeal was nerve-wracking from a mother's perspective.

"I was like, 'My son's in that day care!', and I was all worried," she said. "When I got there, he was like, 'Mommy, mommy!' "

Fernandez said the boat ride seemed to lift some kids' spirits.

"They were crying at first, but when they got in the boat, they thought that was neat," he said.

Other children were proud of their parents for braving the elements to rescue them.

"Daddy took me on his back," said 4-year-old Justin Jackson. His father, Robert Jackson, just smiled, his pants dripping brown floodwater onto the concrete.

Preschoolers weren't the only ones who needed to be rescued from Michael Way on Tuesday night.

To the chagrin of the onlookers who had gathered outside their apartments, Annette Stanley made a right turn onto Michael Way from Rancho Drive and quickly found her compact sedan submerged in hood-high water.

After a team of bystanders shed their socks and shoes and waded in to push her out, Stanley said, "I didn't know how bad it was."

Moments later, she was among the people yelling, "No! No!" as another small car plowed its way into the canal. This time, Stanley joined the rescue team -- it made her feel less guilty, she said.

No emergency vehicles were on the scene Tuesday night.

"We called the fire department, and they said they couldn't come because it wasn't life-threatening. They were helping people who were stuck on the roofs of their cars."

Fernandez said he would never have expected his boat to fill in for a flood- rescue squad.

"Well, maybe when I lived in Oregon, but not in Las Vegas," he said. "I usually use it for fishing in Lake Mead."

Asked whether appreciative parents gave him anything in return for his rescue efforts, Fernandez nodded.

"They said, 'Thanks.' "

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