The Five Hundred Year Flood

At least that's what they are calling it now.

Our kids have missed an entire week of school. Staff reported on Thursday and Friday. It was decided that since the River was still above flood stage, and since the alternate bus routes would involve 2 1/2 hour commutes to and from school, the kids were staying home (smart call). I was one of the lucky ones because my drive to school wasn't impacted much by the flooding so it didn't take me any longer than normal. Some of the staff had to take detours - long detours - and had drives well over an hour, when normally it would take maybe twenty minutes. Traffic in most parts of town was bumper to bumper.

These past two days, without students, were really productive. We were able to work on finalizing grades for our retention and promotion meetings, get field day rescheduled, get our academic award party for the team organized. We do have one problem with the academic award party as the guy we usually buy our plaques from was, sadly, flooded out. So we're going to have to find another vendor as his phone is not being answered (I was hoping he may be working out of his house).

We did, unfortunately, have to cancel the field trip for the kids. No camping this year. Mrs. Eagle, Mrs. Bunny and I had a conference call on Wednesday and decided that we couldn't guarantee our kids' safety. The river is still a mess, things are still flooded, roads are still washing out, and it was just too full of unknowns. So we canceled. I'm sure there are a lot of disappointed kids out there, but honestly, not a single complaint from a single parent. They probably wouldn't let them go anyway.

Amazingly, out of our entire staff, only one of us suffered serious damage to a home (many were stuck and stranded for a few days). Our librarian had 6' of water in her basement and floating freezer and goodness knows what else. She's already applied to FEMA for aid as they had no flood insurance. Then again, many people who got flooded out didn't even live in the 100 year flood zone so the insurance issue is going to be a mess. We're still not sure how many of our kids got displaced, however. We hope to find out on Monday when we're back to school.

I do have another friend, a lady I serve on a board with, who pretty much has lost everything. She's one of those fantastic ladies who does a lot for the community, her church, the arts, you name it. A real classy lady. It breaks my heart that she lost her husband to cancer two years ago, and now her home. Sadly, she's not alone. It's been a pretty tragic week down here.