Clarkdale, once flooded, now divided, looks to rebuild

“Sometimes I get sad because I miss it a lot,” Tristan said recently as he stood awkwardly gripping his arm.

The experience has had a lasting impact on students and staff who sloshed through the rising waters to safety. They cling together tighter as survivors taking away life lessons. Some kids faced their mortality for the first time. Others learned to persevere. Some lost their textbooks, their school and their homes all in the same day.

The Cobb County school board recently decided that Clarkdale, a campus housed temporarily in two locations since the flood, will be rebuilt on higher ground.

The $19.2 million project will make Clarkdale safer and large enough to relieve overcrowding elsewhere in the district. It was the option parents overwhelmingly supported at a community forum before the board vote.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency had given the Cobb County School District permission to rebuild on the same site. Officials who studied maps showing the history of flooding in the community said the land was safe to support a school again because Clarkdale was technically not in a high-risk area.

“The [Clarkdale] school is not in the 100-year flood plain; it is in the 500-year flood plain,” said FEMA spokeswoman Mary Hudak. “When it was built back in the ’60s, somebody understood that it probably had a risk of flooding. They built it on an elevation. ... This was an extraordinary rain event.”

But forcing students and staff to return to the Wesley Road site where they saw water pouring through classroom windows and rising in the parking lot was not what Cobb administrators wanted to do, even if it might have been more cost-effective.

Tristan’s mother, Xandria Johnson, a Clarkdale clerk who evacuated her family from Louisiana before Hurricane Katrina only to also flee the September flood, agreed it was in the best interest of the kids to move the campus. “I have found when it rains hard, the students are very quiet; they get concerned,” she said. “For the kids, it can bring back flashbacks.”

But parent Eric Vincent said Clarkdale is part of the community’s history. “For sentimental reasons, I would like to have seen it right back there on the same spot. I went to Clarkdale. The school was like home for me.”

Cobb schools SPLOST director Doug Shepard said he believes Clarkdale is “unsafe” and that rebuilding elsewhere will allow the school to begin a new chapter. The new Clarkdale will be built near Cooper Middle School and will hold 825 students, nearly twice as many as attended the old Clarkdale.

The district has an insurance policy with a $1 million deductible that will pay about $5.75 million of the reconstruction. Another $9.2 million will come from penny sales tax funds and $2.4 million in capital outlay funds will be used. FEMA and the Georgia Emergency Management Agency will pitch in about $1.87 million to reimburse costs associated with the district’s insurance deductible and other expenses. The construction will not impact the operating budget in a tight fiscal year, said Jay Dillon, Cobb schools spokesman.

Although Clarkdale was heavily damaged, the fact that no lives were lost still amazes some who have seen footage of the school submerged in 10 feet of water.

Principal Marjorie Bickerstaff had to wing it. Although Cobb schools have an emergency plan and her staff had been trained to face disasters, she didn’t see anything on the books about historic floods. “I told them, I pulled out that manual and was like, ‘Where is that flood evacuation plan?’” she said.

Parents and school officials phoned in reports of washed-out roads. A fireman who stopped at the school planted a stick in the ground to gauge how fast the water was rising. Five minutes later, it was covered. Bickerstaff had to get the kids out. Fast.

Bickerstaff decided not to sound the fire alarm because she thought it would frighten students. Staff grabbed the emergency bag that was stashed in the office in case of an evacuation. It had the essentials of running a school on the move — the names and addresses of students, contact numbers, flashlights and a first aid kit.

School nurse Sherry Farmer stuffed all of the medication she could into a makeshift medical bag. She had to leave with the buses in case a child needed her.

“I got all of the inhalers, the EPIM shots, all my diabetic supplies, and all of the things I would need in case someone experienced a fall,” said Farmer, a former hospital pediatric nurse. “I never ever thought we wouldn’t be able to go back.”

Some students didn’t want to get their shoes wet in the ankle-deep water. Some kids were crying. Some were shouting.

Jarod Vincent, 10, didn’t want to leave his dad’s trumpet behind. He dashed back to get the 35-year-old family heirloom. “I had to save it,” he said.

Tristan, his classmate, was worried. He knew what flooding could do. After Katrina destroyed his home, Tristan returned with his parents to find the refrigerator tossed in the living room. “Me and Jarod hugged each other and said we were going to meet each other in student heaven.’’

Clarkdale, however, was safely evacuated in 15 minutes.

Debra Rodriguez whisked away her three kids to bad news. “The house is flooding, we gotta go!” she told them. Two staff members also lost their homes.

When the murky water receded, Clarkdale was coated with muck. Ceiling tiles had crumbled to the floor. Items displayed in the foyer had been pushed to the back of the school.

Bickerstaff had to break the news to her staff that the flood had destroyed almost everything. Damage to the contents was estimated at nearly $1.7 million. The principal even saw photos of her grandkids tossed in the garbage by cleanup crews. “We provided a support group for the teachers,” she said. “It was hard for them to understand that they could not go back and get some of the things that meant so much to them.”

Counselors also were on hand when school resumed for students two days after the flood at Compton Elementary and Austell Intermediate.

“I applaud the decision to open school to the children two days later,” said Phil Lazarus of the National Association of School Psychologists. “Children in trauma need a circle of care.”

As Clarkdale’s flood made national headlines, donations came rolling in. The grand totals: $35,793 was sent directly to Clarkdale; $101,640 went to the Cobb Schools Foundation; and $40,303 was donated in gift cards.

The charity that Clarkdale kids received moved some to help other children whose schools were destroyed during the Haiti earthquake. “I had one student who gave the dollar the tooth fairy left for him,” Bickerstaff said.

Traditions at Clarkdale are being maintained. Fifth-graders will go on a class trip and have a banquet to celebrate moving on to middle school. Students will come together for field day. “We have joint faculty meetings, joint PTA meetings; we are one school in two locations,” Bickerstaff said.

The old Clarkdale will be demolished. The land could be considered for a park. The new Clarkdale will take two years to complete. Some parents, however, wonder whether it will be any safer.

“Sweetwater Creek is directly behind Cooper Middle; during the flood that area had a pretty good amount of water back there,” Debra Rodriguez said. “They need to move to higher ground.”

Students who leave before Clarkdale is rebuilt will be invited to share in its future. Tristan’s class might be asked to sign bricks from the old school or leave another legacy for opening day.

“I would love to come back,” he said.

Damages add up

Here is a snapshot of some of Clarkdale’s losses:

● K-5 textbooks: $422,781

● School media/library center furniture and equipment: $349,297

● School technology equipment: $304,824

● School kitchen/cafeteria equipment and food: $262,822

● General and maintenance equipment: $152,644

Source: Cobb County School District