According to the state department of education, due to the destruction left behind by Hurricane Ida, about 70,000 Louisiana kids are still not back in school; mostly in Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. John, and St. Charles.
St. Charles Parish Superintendent Kern Oertling says 19 schools will reopen next week, but Destrehan and Hahnville high schools will have to temporarily merge.
“Both of are primary high schools, 15-hundred students at each were significantly impacted in addition to other buildings on these campuses,” said Oertling.
Oertling addressed the Senate Education Committee Tuesday. He says the system’s annual budget will soon be depleted due to the cost of vegetative AND structural debris removal, hazard mitigation, and rebuilding.
“General repairs just to put roofs back on buildings, put sheetrock back into classrooms after they’ve been mitigated, approximately 5.5 million dollars, we anticipate long-term repairs, and these are just estimates around 20-million dollars,” said Oertling.
As southeast Louisiana schools try to recover from Ida, schools in southwestern parishes – hit hard by Hurricane Laura in 2020 – are still struggling to regain normalcy. Calcasieu Parish School Superintendent Karl Bruchhaus says students have been back for quite some time, but the long-term damage is evident. He says he’s glad the system bought all the 55-gallon waste cans available at Sam’s.
“Because we have them all over our school district, where our one-million square feet temporary roof continues to leak everytime it rains,” said Bruchhaus.
Bruchhaus says he’s had to postpone 50 recovery projects because the school system is still awaiting federal recovery money.
“On the construction side we are out of cash,” said Bruchhaus.
He says the remaining construction projects will cost 260-million dollars. The Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Prepardness is expected to send federal money to the school system, ahead of finishing its review of the paperwork the school district submitted.
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