As cleanup continues after flood at Meeker Elementary, a potential insurance battle looms

Dec. 15--More than a month after a flood from a broken pipe forced Meeker Elementary School students and teachers out of their building and into their makeshift home at Generations Church, the church and the displaced school have settled into a rhythm around each other, but little else about the situation is settled.

Questions remain about how long the students and teachers will have to stay at the church, when the Meeker building will be habitable again, what it will look like when it is and, most significantly, who will pay for damages that have soared into the millions of dollars.

Greeley City Manager Roy Otto confirmed Thursday night that Traveler's Insurance, which insures Greeley-Evans School District 6, has filed a claim against the city to recoup costs that include paying rent to Generations, charter buses that take students from Meeker to their temporary home and the eventual renovation of Meeker itself. Traveler's contention is that a Greeley water main break at 35th Avenue and 22nd Street caused the flooding that damaged Meeker; Otto said that's a "debatable issue," because the flooding came not from the city water main, but from Meeker's own fire service line. A third-party investigator, Cannon Cochran Management Services, Inc., has been hired to determine if the city water main break was responsible for the school's fire service line breaking.

Should CCMSI find the city liable, Traveler's would seek reimbursement. Greeley self-insures up to $500,000. Any damages greater than that -- which Meeker's certainly are -- will be covered by Genesis Insurance. But that wouldn't be the end of it. If Greeley is found liable, city safety and risk coordinator Doug Clark said it will invoke the Colorado Governmental Immunity Act, which would limit the damages the city is responsible for to $350,000. If Traveler's doesn't accept that, it could become embroiled in a lengthy legal battle with the city.

Whoever is responsible, they'll pay for Meeker to be completely gutted and rebuilt from the inside. District spokeswoman Theresa Myers said insurance adjusters have found substantial damage to floors and drywall, almost all of which has been removed. They found asbestos in some areas; the flooding also caused mold. It's still not passing air-quality tests. When Meeker is rebuilt, the district will have to decide whether to use a new design; as it was, it lacked basic safety features, such as a clear line of sight from the office to the entrance.

It's nearly certain at this point, Myers said, that Meeker will be uninhabitable for the remainder of the school year. Lynn Kellum, the facilities manager at Generations, said the church is prepared to house Meeker's students and teachers for as long as necessary. Thus far, Meeker's kindergarten-through-fourth-grade students have gone to Generations, while the fifth-graders and special-needs students have used portable classrooms at Meeker that escaped damage. After winter break, those students will be moved to Generations, too. Their portable classrooms will be set up at the adjacent fields at Greeley West High School. Keeping them separate was acceptable for a short time, Myers said, but longer than that isn't.

"They miss their friends," she said.

The district also is looking for a long-term solution to the pick-up and drop-off situation. Now, parents drop their kids off at Meeker at the time school would normally start, and they're bussed to Generations, then vice versa at the end of the day. The district chose that option because Generations is off of the same side street as Greeley West, and Meeker parents taking their kids there at the same time the high school students arrived would cause a traffic nightmare. But Meeker's students lose about 20 minutes of instructional time per day with this setup, Myers said. Keeping the students separated was OK for a couple of weeks, but it is untenable for the majority of the school year.

Despite all this turbulence, the teachers and students who moved to Generations seem to have settled into a groove. Kellum said they got stackable rolling shelves that make packing up their classrooms at the end of every day easier. Teachers and church officials talk about every other day, she said, and share calendars so they can work around each other. She said some classes have gone on field trips to free up space the church needed, for example.

And the community has rallied around Meeker, too. Kristin Martin, a special education teacher at Winograd K-8 school, organized a drive among her coworkers to collect supplies for Meeker's teachers. They donated kids' books, markers, file folders, sticky notes and other things "you don't think you miss till you miss them," Martin said.

Julie Propst, the owner of Gojo Sports, 2547 11th Ave in Greeley, started a fundraiser to give Meeker teachers money to buy more of their own supplies. She's raised almost $1,600 so far. Propst, a former teacher, said she could empathize with Meeker's faculty and the thought of them not having supplies "made her sick."

"It's heartbreaking," she said. "Teaching is hard enough."

-- Tommy Wood writes about education and Evans city government for The Tribune. You can reach him at (970) 392-4470, [email protected] or on Twitter @woodstein72.

___

(c)2017 the Greeley Tribune (Greeley, Colo.)

Visit the Greeley Tribune (Greeley, Colo.) at www.greeleytribune.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.