It was a relatively balmy 45 degrees Wednesday afternoon as Eddie Campbell Jr., worked through some paperwork in his office.
Insurance paperwork, the Monongalia County Schools superintendent said, ruefully.
That’s because several school buildings here didn’t make it through last week’s arctic onslaught without a mark, he said.
Broken pipes and HVAC issues abounded, he said.
“A good six to 10 of our buildings are damaged,” he said, “and it’s all attributed to the weather.”
“I’ve never experienced anything like this,” said Campbell, who was once principal of a high school right below the Arctic Circle in Alaska.
And – meteorologically – neither had anyone else.
An unprecedented “bomb cyclone” was the weather culprit.
Some locales across the U.S. were buried in snow.
An icy shroud with a vortex of wind chills within settled over the rest of us, causing temperatures to plummet – sometimes dangerously fast – from Connecticut to California.
In Mon’s school district, North Elementary and Mountainview Elementary took big hits.
Pipes in auxiliary buildings on both campuses burst, causing water damage that could come to six figures total for both schools, once all the assessments and estimates are made.
Other damage: A burst pipe at South Middle, he reports, caused some damage to the main office, auditorium and front entrance.
Freezers went down in the cafeterias at Suncrest Middle and Clay-Battelle, the superintendent said – with Morgantown High, University High and Cheat Lake Elementary also experiencing weather-related HVAC problems.
“We got hit hard,” he said. “Cheat Lake’s system is completely down.”
In the meantime, clean-up work continues this week, he said, with complete damage estimates to follow.
While some classes in those damaged buildings at North and Mountainview may have to be shuffled, he said all buildings will be open next week, when students return from their holiday break.
Campbell said administrators across the district “put themselves on alert” last week when school students were leaving for that break.
Principals heeded the weather reports, the superintendent said, and kept monitoring their schools.
Bomb cyclones, and their resulting weather patterns, however, generally get their own way, Campbell said.
“There’s no way you could have fully anticipated something like this,” he said.
One thing that wasn’t a surprise, however, he said, was the response by the maintenance staff and other employees, who mobilized – even in the cold.
Employees scrambled, at the height of the weather, to transfer food from damaged freezers and to wield mops, the superintendent said.
Whatever was needed, he said.
And this was during the height of the holiday, too, he said.
“They sacrificed time with their families to help. They’re good people.”
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