‘Here to stay’: Moffett Public Schools restored from flood

Sep. 29--MOFFETT -- Moffett Public Schools has fully recovered from the devastation following the Arkansas River flood in May.

The school district, which is comprised of 368 students in kindergarten through eighth grade, has returned to classrooms that in May and June were inundated by an Arkansas River that swelled to nearly 41 feet above flood stage. Students and staff were able to make their return, Principal Lance Stuart said, because of federal emergency funds, outside restoration help and staff members who worked tirelessly to ensure the students would return to their classrooms in August.

"It's amazing. People step up during a time of crisis," Stuart said.

Moffett, a town of fewer than 150 people on the west bank of the Arkansas River across from Fort Smith, was evacuated on June 24 after National Weather Service officials estimated the river would reach 41 feet following torrential upstream rains in Oklahoma and Kansas. The school, which draws from the city as well as surrounding communities, held about eight feet of water in its buildings from May 26-June 1 as the river remained at this level.

Stuart after the flood in June said faculty and administration didn't stack their items high enough in their facilities because they didn't expect the river to reach as high as it did. They couldn't get into the school after the river exceeded 33.5 feet on May 24, he said.

The flood caused more than $1 million in damage to Moffett Public Schools. It also caused concern among school faculty, Stuart said.

"After nine days, I was finally able to get in here, and it was unreal. It was like a bad dream," Stuart said. "There was debris everywhere, snakes everywhere, dead fish everywhere. These windows were busted out from the water pressure. Everything was turned upside down. It was just a mess."

Staff members immediately began to clean out the school after the floodwaters subsided. They then began to build everything back after a remediation crew removed the muck and debris and sanitized the insides of the buildings, Stuart said.

Stuart said some of the school buildings had flood insurance, which helped them with reimbursement costs. He said all of the FEMA money they received went to the remediation company they hired to come in and clean.

But Stuart believes the school would not have been built back without the help of God's Pit Crew, a faith-based disaster relief ministry that spent roughly $300,000 on its restoration.

"(The director) said, 'Make a list of everything the school needs right down to if you need grass seeds for the football field,'" said Moffett English teacher Stacey Bean, who coordinated God's Pit Crew's efforts in the city. "I worked with the teachers, made up all of our lists, got it to them ... They ordered every teacher a brand new desk, podium, chair, white board."

The school also received donated school supplies from as close as Fort Smith and as far away as Minnesota and California, Stuart said. They were put to use by students at the beginning of the year, including 90 who had to use four mobile FEMA classrooms while their permanent classrooms were restored.

The flood damage caused teachers at the beginning of the school year to be innovative in their teaching, Stuart said.

"The kids can adjust. There wasn't any problem with the kids. We struggled a little bit as far as not having our technology and everything up, so we kind of had to go to the old school way of teaching," he said. "A lot of my staff, a lot of our staff, it was kind of like they were first-year teachers again. They had to dig, they had to find the material. It was a pretty good experience for them as well."

The FEMA classrooms once used by the teachers and students sat unused on Friday on the school's athletic fields.

"We leased or rented them for three months, but we got done in a lot better time than that," Stuart said.

The classrooms aren't the only facilities that have been restored from the flood. Administrative offices on campus are furnished with new wood flooring and furniture. The basketball court, which at the beginning of June was covered with a layer of muck, has been dried out.

Beam said she and other faculty are "ecstatic" to be back for the school year.

"There are a lot of people, including some teachers, who questioned if we would be back," she said.

"We're here to stay," Stuart said.

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