Two Elementary Schools Suffered Storm Damage

District 115 crews are responding to storm damage at two elementary schools but leaders anticipate having school Friday, Supt. Scott Wakeley said.

By 10 a.m. today, crews had finished clearing and salting and the back parking lot at , Wakeley said. They were moving onto Autumn Creek Elementary School and .

The district didn’t have the manpower to clear all the buildings in time to have school today, Wakeley said.

“You really need to be everywhere at the same time, because as soon as you dig it out, it blows back over,” he said.

Crews did work through Tuesday night and much of Wednesday, but the amount of clearing work (coupled with the frigid temperatures predicted for today) compelled Wakeley to cancel school today.

The National Weather Service lifted a wind chill advisory for the area at noon but is predicting a high Friday of 16 degrees, with wind chills as low as 19 below, according to its website. Wakeley said he plans for District 115 classes to be in session Friday and to add two days to the end of the academic year.

The district also dealt with minor storm damage.

Tuesday’s snowstorm blew a roof cap off the front of Autumn Creek Elementary School, allowing snow to slide into the roof and damaging ceiling tiles when the snow melted, Wakeley said.

“Not a significant amount or anything, but it is something that needs to be replaced,” Wakeley said.

At Bristol Bay Elementary School, two heating coils froze after the building lost power Tuesday, which prevented pumps from moving water through the coils and allowed the water there to freeze, Wakeley said.

By noon, all but one classroom at Bristol Bay had heat, so that class would be relocated Friday if the problem wasn’t fixed by the time school starts, Wakeley said.