Water turned school's hallways into creeks

By Emily Heffter

Seattle Times education reporter

STORM EXTRAS

Recent stories

Mudslide photo spurs look at logging practices

Olympic National Forest suffers $8 million in storm damage

Three more counties are now eligible for flood relief

Major bridge closed near Vancouver, Wash., new span to be built

Lewis County farmers moving forward after floods

Flood victims need manual labor, financial help

For flood victims, cleanup requires money and people

Gregoire on storm recovery: "We're in for a long haul"

While barbecue restaurant is rebuilt, hotel to be home

Flood dispatches by reporter Tricia Duryee

Did development, logging set the stage for disaster?

In Lewis County, floodwaters leave; breathtaking destruction emerges

Postman on Politics | Seeing flood damage, and politics, from up high

Christmastime in Lewis County

The next likely flood: insurance claims

Friends, strangers, love help flooded family get by

Possessions and lives left in pieces after flood

Heroic neighbors fought flood's fury, but many animals couldn't be saved

Be aware of scams in floods' wake

Flood victims may be eligible to get food aid

All the dampness an invitation to mold

Funding, feuding put flood project on hold

Was deficient drainage or extreme storm to blame?

"The wind meter broke" at 81 mph

What to give? And how will it get there?

Multimedia

What a storm!

Rainwater that forced Seattle's Nathan Hale High School to close for a full week flowed in through the doors and down the hallways, rising to a depth of a couple of inches, officials said.

Students were in third period Monday morning when flooding in 28 classrooms forced the school to close. Water was seeping into the walls of first-floor classrooms, said Seattle Public Schools maintenance manager Mark Pflueger. The water entered the school through the doorways, running off the cement courtyard and asphalt paving in front of the school.

Maintenance crews began replacing the walls and discovered asbestos around pipes that needed to be removed. That "tedious process" slowed repair efforts, said district facilities director Fred Stephens.

The 40-year-old North Seattle high school has never flooded before, Stephens said. Crews will work day and night through the weekend to finish the work by Monday, when students are scheduled to return.

The school's gym was not affected by flooding, so Friday and Saturday night basketball games will still take place, but ACT testing Saturday has been moved to nearby Summit K-12.

It's not clear how many days students will have to make up, or when. That must be negotiated with the teachers union, school officials said.

More Local News headlines...

E-mail article Print view