Storms cause minor damage at four schools

By Emily Richmond

Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2005 | 9:32 a.m.

The heavy rainfall of recent days caused flooding and minor damage at four Clark County schools and had maintenance crews scrambling to make repairs before students returned Monday from the winter vacation break, just in time for more rain.

The worst damage was at Goldfarb Elementary School where inadequate drainage in the central courtyard sent rainwater streaming into the teachers' lounge and several classrooms, damaging carpets, baseboards and walls.

The district's maintenance crews worked over the weekend and had completed all but the touch-up work completed by Monday afternoon, said Goldfarb Principal Suzzie Bragg.

"The district was very, very quick on this," said Bragg, whose campus is located on Orchard Valley Drive off East Charleston Boulevard.

Because district schools were closed last week for the winter holiday, some of the damage from last week's storm wasn't discovered until school staff stopped by the schools during the weekend, said Randy Shingleton, director of facilities maintenance for the district.

The cost of damage won't be immediately known but is expected to be between $30,000 and $40,000 for the four schools, Shingleton said. At Valley High School, sloped turf outside the gymnasium sent water inside, damaging the hardwood floor, which may need to be re-sanded. Crestwood Elementary School's kindergarten classroom had carpet damage when water pooled around the entrance.

And at Wendell P. Williams Elementary School a new outdoor turtle habitat flooded and forced water into an adjacent classroom.

Fortunately the turtles had not yet been added at the time of the flood, Williams Principal Brenda McKinney said.

The damage at Williams could probably have been avoided if the school had let the facilities department know it was planning to build the turtle habitat, Shingleton said.

"It's a little frustrating because we have facilities representatives available to work with schools on projects like this so we can look at the plans and keep these kinds of problems from happening," Shingleton said.

The silver lining to the rain clouds may be that no turtles were washed away, Shingleton said.

"I was very relieved to hear that," he said.