Approximately 100 Live Oak High students were forced to move
their cars from the student parking area due to flooding Wednesday
morning, according to Principal Nancy Serigstad.
Approximately 100 Live Oak High students were forced to move their cars from the student parking area due to flooding Wednesday morning, according to Principal Nancy Serigstad.
“It was about one-third of the lot,” she said, “not the entire lot. Some of the students had to push their cars, helped by the assistant principals and some of the yard duties, and of course everyone was drenched, but everyone was safe.”
Morgan Hill was battered by a wind and rain storm, stronger during the morning hours, that flooded roads and knocked over trees. No other district schools, according to Superintendent Carolyn McKennan suffered damage, although apparently some of the windows at Barrett Elementary leaked. The district maintenance staff was looking into the problem Thursday.
The District Office experienced some leaks around doors, which McKennan said was mainly in the older portion of the building and is a typical problem whenever it rains hard or the rain is accompanied by a strong wind.
The flooding in the high school student parking lot was the result of clogged drains, which was apparently an act of vandalism. The Live Oak staff and the Morgan Hill School District maintenance staff are investigating, but Serigstad said she believed sand bags and other items were stuffed into the drains.
McKennan confirmed that the district would be investigating the situation.
“I will be really disappointed if that (vandalism) turns out to be the case,” she said. “We are looking into it, and we would not accuse anyone until we are certain.”
The investigation into the vandalism was continuing Thursday.
The students who had to move their cars to the basketball courts and the staff parking lot were of course soaked by the downpour, Serigstad said, and were given the opportunity to call parents to have clothes delivered or to receive permission to go change and return.
“Everyone was extremely cooperative and returned to class in an orderly fashion,” she said. “I was proud of the responsible way the students approached the situation. There were no problems.”
McKennan said the city also performed over and above what was expected.
“With all of the other circumstances the public works department was certainly facing today, they managed to get their large pumper truck over there very quickly,” she said. “They were extremely helpful.”
Another difficulty presented by the powerful storm was the flooding of an area of campus near some of the portable classrooms. Three of them were unreachable due to massive puddles, so the classes normally in those portables were moved.
Serigstad said there was never a chance that the school would close early because of the storm, as some had hoped.
“It just didn’t make sense, and I told the students in an announcement that things were business as usual. The parking lot had drained, the rain was abating, and the students were safer on campus.”
McKennan cited student safety as the reason the campus did not shut down early.
“We had a discussion, Nancy, Bonnie (Deputy Superintendent Tognazzini), Al (Director of Construction and Modernization Solis) and I, and we said releasing hundreds of kids, without parental knowledge, students who had driven themselves and possibly others, whom would ride with whom, with wet roads, flooding and possibly wet brakes on the car, we couldn’t find a way to make that a safe situation,” she said.
“We are responsible for the safety of those students until the end of the school day, and I just don’t see how we could have fulfilled that responsibility by letting them go without notifying every single parent. Even then, was the situation safer out there than on campus? We felt the safest place for them was on campus. The students might be damp and wet, but they are also alive and safe.”
