Like many Kent valley businesses, the Kent School District is preparing a plan for what to do with its three valley schools – and the students and teachers in them – if flood waters start to rise this winter.
At the Oct. 14 Kent School Board Meeting, Assistant Superintendent of Business Affairs Fred High laid out the beginnings of the district’s plan to deal with flooding, which includes ringing the schools with giant sandbags and potentially reopening the old Panther Lake Elementary on a temporary basis.
According to High, there are 3,260 students who live on the valley floor, though not all of those attend the three schools: Neely O’Brien, Kent Elementary and Mill Creek Middle School.
The plan would be to try and place those students elsewhere during a flood and continue their education with as little interruption as possible.
According to High, the role of the district during a flood would be three-fold: support the needs of the lead agencies (such as providing buses for an evacuation), continuity of instruction and protecting the facilities and equipment located in the valley.
So far, the district has established a flood-coordination team, purchased additional flood insurance, is working with other agencies and is in the process of evaluating instructional options, such as housing students at the older Panther Lake facility or possible double-shifting at some schools.
“If the valley does flood, we will be able to use that school as a school facility,” High said of the old Panther Lake.
The district has also selected a “super sand bag” system, like the ones used by the city, to protect its buildings. High said the bags, which weigh 3,500 pounds and must be stacked in place with a forklift, will form two- to three-feet of protection around the schools.
Gaps will be left to provide access to the buildings as well as for emergency personnel, but High said the plan is to be able to seal those gaps in the event of flood, which the district said should come with an eight- to 72-hour warning.
The district is also preparing plans to transport records, instruments and technology out of the schools and into other facilities, depending on the amount of warning given.
“The scenarios we develop will be largely dependent on the amount of time we have,” High said, adding that the records were the most important to move because they are “irreplaceable.”
The district will also be used as a community resource, potentially housing state department of health records usually kept in buildings in the valley.
District buses also may be pressed into service to help evacuate residents from the valley in the case of a flood. Schools also may be used as staging areas, though they are not designated to be housing.
Both of those may cause interruptions in school services.
High said the district will also run preparedness drills next month with the plan of having all measures in place by the end of November, but overall uncertainty about the floods makes planning a bit difficult.
“We’re preparing for something and we don’t entirely know what’s going to happen,” he said.
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