ATHENS, Ala. — January 4 was the first day back to school for Limestone County schools. But while faculty and students were enjoying Christmas break, four Limestone County schools were not so lucky. Our reporter Jasamine Byrd has the latest on plumbing damage.
Dr. Randy Shearouse, Limestone County Schools superintendent, says right before Christmas, "North Alabama experienced a super cold snap. and several of our schools were affected, mainly with our sprinkler systems."
But there were some other plumbing issues as well " ...where we had busted lines, and which resulted in flooding in several schools," Dr. Shearouse explains.
Johnson Elementary was one school that experienced damage. "Thankfully, we were able to clean that up really quickly," Dr. Shearouse says.
A little later there were some issues at Sugar Creek Elementary, "What happened over there was once again, sprinkler system kind of affected us later when things were thawing out. And so, we had a lot of flooding there in that building."
Dr. Shearouse says fortunately, only four classrooms were impacted at Sugar Creek and three of which were being used. They were able to relocate those students. "We did have to put a temporary construction wall up because we're going to have to do some major repair of sheetrock and so forth there."
Dr. Shearouse says they did have to repair the sprinkler systems at both schools, but those schools were ready to go today, and students started back without an issue.
East Limestone and Tanner High School also experienced water damage in their football restrooms due to frozen temperatures, "We did patch pass an emergency act so that we could expedite the process and get things fixed as quickly as possible," he says.
Dr. Shearouse reiterates that students are back in school today, the first day back after Christmas and they're starting the second semester strong.