Troops’ job a class act
TOWNSVILLE soldiers have started the painstaking cleanup at a primary school to get it ready for students.
About 50 personnel from the 3rd Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment started clearing out the mud at Oonoonba State School yesterday so classes could resume next week.
Corporal Adam Layland from the Pioneer Platoon 3RAR described the present state of the conditions of the classrooms as unsanitary.
“You walk in there and it smells really bad … it’s knee deep mud, it’s slippery sort of stuff,” Cpl Layland said.
“We’re taking all the furniture out so we can clean it and work out what stuff needs to be thrown away or kept.”
Commander of Pioneer Platoon 3RAR Lieutenant Samuel Holloway-roden said the Army was working with contractors to assess the integrity of structures.
“We started removing all the furniture and assessing what they’ve lost so they can start ordering those,” Lt Holloway-roden said.
“The school itself has received quite a substantial bit of flooding. All the rooms are currently covered in mud on the floor.
“It’s destroyed a lot of books and resources for the school itself and some of the electronics are being damaged so it’s going to be quite an extensive effort to get it back up online.”