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Custodians are cleaning up a huge mess at Rose Park Elementary School. An eight-inch water main broke sometime overnight, flooding the school with between 2 and 4 inches of water. When the head custodian got to the school at 630, he saw water flowing underneath the doors. It came rushing out when he opened them.
When I was growing up in Maryland and Missouri, we’d tune into the radio on snowy/icy days to hear if school was canceled. It was, several days a year. But there’s no “water-main break day!” Parents found out Rose Park Elementary school was closed through a reverse phone tree.
What a mess, with all that water pooling in the step-down carpeted area in the main hallway. The elevator looked like a wading pool. Dozens of people were mopping, vacuuming and sweeping the whole first floor when I got there. After the clean-up they will assess the damage. It appears the water mostly damaged the floors and a little bit of the walls. But if any teachers had boxes or books on the floor, they could be damaged.
My pants are soaked to mid-calf. My shoes are squishy. As soon as I got there I just splashed right in to get an idea of what was going on. I didn’t even think to roll up my pants like some staff did at the school. Better yet, Channel 5 photographer Derek had galoshes in his truck. Smart!
