FALLING ROCK, W.Va. — Herbert Hoover High School’s principal says the school’s building is damaged badly but its community will grow stronger in the wake of last week’s flooding in eastern Kanawha County.
Mike Kelly promised that even though it may not be possible to start school on time at Herbert Hoover, students, teachers and staff will be together somewhere nearby.
“Hoover will reopen, and we’re going to be back stronger than ever,” Kelly vowed. “We may or may not be able to do that in early August, or we might be a few weeks or a month behind getting back in this building. But our kids are going to go to school together in this community.”
The school community is tight-knit, Kelly said, and the damage has left many devastated.
“So many people are just heartbroken over this. You had seen pictures and you suspected what it might be like, but until you actually walk through there and see it, you don’t understand the devastation that it brought.”
Kelly said almost the entire bottom level of the school was covered in mud, with the one bright spot being that most classrooms upstairs weren’t impacted. He wasn’t sure if anything could be salvaged from the mess.
“We don’t exactly know that yet. We’ve got to get all the mud pushed out of the building, we have to have people come in and check our electrical systems, gas, water and make sure that’s safe,” Kelly said. “Once they do that then we’ll start to pull everything out. My guess is we’re not going to be able to salvage much.”
Contingency plans were in motion to kickoff the school year at a nearby location, but Kelly didn’t divulge specific details.