South River High School stadium damaged

Chuck Jeffries, an assistant volleyball coach at South River High School, was on the way to a practice he didn’t know had been canceled when the sky became abruptly ominous. He was about half a mile away.

“I’m heading east on [Maryland Route] 214, and I see that funnel cloud from my right to my left. I never seen a live tornado before, but it was obvious to me

it was a tornado,” he said. “So I pulled over and watched it pass.”

As soon as it passed, calmness persisted. Then, he drove a little further.

“Once I got closer to the school, it looked like a war zone,” Jeffries said. He

recounted seeing trees and power lines down, leaves everywhere. He pulled into the parking lot. “It looked like a tornado came right up the football field.”

As he continued onto the campus, the concession stand at the football field caught his eye.

“The roof had been lifted and pushed back,” Jeffries said.

Anne Arundel County Public Schools spokesman Bob Mosier said the roof to the concessions stand was “damaged pretty badly” and some rails were twisted but that school appears to be undamaged, though it was still without power Wednesday evening. He also said there doesn’t appear to be damage to the field or the goalpost, but didn’t know about the bleachers.

The Center for Applied Technology South, which sits on the backside of the high school, was also damaged, but the harm

seems to be cosmetic, not structural, Mosier said. Engineers were looking at the structure of the building Wednesday afternoon.

The Seahawks football team is scheduled to host Westminster on Friday evening.

While it seemed iffy if the game would be played at South River, Wednesday night the athletics department tweeted that the game versus Westminster would be played at Severna Park Friday night. Mosier had said before the news that it would have been a shame if it wasn’t played because it’s going to be a “grand relaunch.”

He said the good news is “nobody got hurt.”

“The school and all the others in the complex here carried out their shelter In place plans to a tee,” he said.

When the tornado warning lifted, the staff at South River helped the staff at Center of Applied Technology South into their building, and then everyone was dismissed from there.

“I would urge anybody who is thinking of coming here to stay away so our folks can do the work here,” he said.

Mosier said CAT South had windows broken and ceiling tiles strewn about.

“The focus has been on CAT South. We need that ready for instruction on Wednesday,” Mosier said.

He said while some missing ceiling tiles won’t affect the school’s opening Sept. 8, other issues like a lack of power will need to be resolved. The school system is working with BGE.