MORE FLOOD COVERAGE
34 buildings affected by Tuesday’s rain, but damage kept to minimum
Thirty-four area schools experienced flooding Tuesday, but there’s no damage serious enough to wash away the first day of school Tuesday.
Among the hardest hit was Lajeunesse high school of the French Catholic board (Conseil scolaire catholique Providence).
“Everything will be in place for the first day of school,” said Joseph Picard, director of education for the French Catholic board.
“We have a company already in there cleaning up and making repairs. We’ll be monitoring closely for mould.
“Water came in through the drain. There’s one area of the school where we’ll have to replace some bulkheads and repair some drywall. “It’s nothing too significant.” Picard said his board had seven schools that got water damage to varying degrees.
In addition to Lajeunesse, flooding was reported at Saint Antoine, Sainte-Margeurite-d’Youville, L’Essor high school, Monseigneur Jean Noel, Saint-Edmond, Sainte Therese and Georges P. Vanier.
Area boards reported most schools were cleaned up by Wednesday afternoon leaving the hallways filled with the buzz of fans and humidifiers to ensure things are completely dried out by next week.
Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board spokesman Stephen Fields said his board had 10 schools flood.
“It looks like the flooding was pretty widespread, reflecting the pattern across the city,” Fields said.
“Brennan looked like it got rocked hard. We’ve got some damage to the floor in the gymnasium.
“We don’t know the full extent of the damage or whether it needs replacing yet.”
Fields added Holy Names high school also got water as the roof drains couldn’t handle the volume of rain that came pouring down Tuesday.
The other eight schools impacted were Corpus Christi, St. Rose, St. James, Christ the King, Notre Dame, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, St. Mary and St. Gabriel elementary schools.
“It doesn’t look like there’s anything that will impact the first day of school,” Fields said. “There might be a couple of minor inconveniences, such as not being able to use the gym at Brennan.”
The Greater Essex County District School Board had 16 schools affected by flood water, but suffered no major damage.
County board spokesman Scott Scantlebury said the affected schools were largely in South Windsor, east Windsor and a couple in LaSalle.
Scantlebury said Massey Secondary School and Glenwood elementary were the hardest hit schools.
“All the schools have already been cleaned up and we’ll be ready to welcome students on the first day of school Tuesday,” Scantlebury said.
“They’ll find no evidence of what happened.
“Our maintenance people got on it right away (Tuesday night) and had already completed cleaning up (by Wednesday morning). We didn’t need to call in any outside help.
“It was mostly water coming up from drains. There was no structural damage, no drywall was damaged.”
Other public schools getting inundated by flooding included Giles French Immersion Campus, Northwood, Ford City, Herman Academy, Kennedy, Hugh Beaton, Marlborough, David Maxwell, Princess Elizabeth, Dr. David Suzuki, Queen Victoria, Sandwich West, Sandwich high school and the Western Facility Service Building.
St. Clair College, which cancelled night classes Tuesday due to road conditions, was open on Wednesday.
The college is hosting thousands of students for orientation this week.
“We had no impact from the water,” said John Fairley, vicepresident of communications and community relations. “We’re open for business.”
The University of Windsor also was open and operating normally Wednesday.
“There were no flooding issues at the university related to the storm,” said John Coleman, the university’s director of public affairs and communications.
It looks like the flooding was pretty widespread reflecting the pattern across the city.