On Tuesday, Sept. 4, our school day was canceled halfway through the day when a pipe burst in an upstairs classroom on the western side of the school causing flooding and water damage. It was during second lunch when the entire building had to stand outside while the administration got a hold of the situation. 

During the flooding several students and teachers had possessions that were directly affected. 

Junior Judy Dismuke is one of the students who was affected but did not have her stuff in one of the rooms that was flooded. 

“I feel like my stuff might have gotten wet but not enough that it damaged it,” said Dismuke. 

The flooding caused the fire alarms to go off and sent all of the students outside. Students were eventually dismissed later in the day.  

“First I was anxious, like’ *gasp* my keys are in there’ and stuff like that,” said Dismuke. 

The next day, when students returned to school, multiple classes of students had to be moved into another classroom because of the water damage to the old classrooms.  

“I was in the classroom literally across the hall to the room that flooded so the days after we had to go to a different room,” said Dismuke. 

During the flooding when classrooms were evacuated outside, several of the outside portables were waiting to go to the third lunch. Senior Chad Duerfeldt is one of the students who was not able to get lunch and was stuck inside his portable, with no information on what was going on, until dismissal for the rest of the school day. 

“We didn’t know anything was happening in the portables because the fire alarms didn’t go off, so we were just sitting there,” said Duerfeldt. 

Even though students were outside of the building, the lunch bells continued to ring. Students in the portables didn’t realize there was an issue until they were dismissed to go eat until being stopped by administrators handling the situation outside. 

“The lunch bell rings and we go to eat lunch and Mr. Brooks is outside and he’s like, ‘whoa whoa whoa we’re not switching yet, we’re in the middle of a fire,’ so I’m like oh okay that’s new,” said Duerfeldt. 

The early dismissal was a positive outcome to some students and Duerfeldt is indeed one of those students. 

“I was mad I couldn’t eat lunch, but why wouldn’t I be happy,” said Duerfeldt.