Summer storms wreak havoc on a number of Edmonton schools

Hundreds of thousands of students are gearing up to head back to class Tuesday morning. However, not all students will be heading back to fully functional schools.

Severe storms wreaked havoc on over 40 Edmonton schools this summer.

The storm on July 12th hit Mill Woods particularly hard, causing severe flooding at J. Percy Page High School. That morning, Principal Bryan Radmanovich was called in at 4am to assess the damage.

Up to 30 centimetres of water filled some areas of the school, a truck had to be used to pump it all out.

“We had some damage to our construction lab, our cosmetology lab as well as our music room,” Radmanovich adds.

Clean up crews have been working hard and have repaired those areas however, both gymnasium floors were ruined. The floors have been torn out and are expected to be re-installed mid-October.

In the meantime, sports teams and physical education classes will be using the gym at Grant MacEwan, which is located across the street from J. Percy Page.

“With our football room outside and us having to go to Grant MacEwan to play our sports teams, it’s kind of depressing,” explains grade 12 student Waseem Elmais adding, “But, I’m actually pretty excited because they never let us down. It’s always better and better so I hope (the gym) is even better than what we had.”

In total, 44 Edmonton Public Schools were damaged at a cost of $1.5 million.

“It is covered under insurance but, you can’t keep claiming on insurance forever before your premiums go up. So, we’re quite concerned about that but, it is covered by insurance and it won’t impact students in the classroom,” explains John Nicoll, Managing Director of Facility Services with EPSB.

He says damage in each of the schools varies but, six schools will have gym floors completely replaced. The schools impacted are Harry Ainlay High School, Junior High Schools T.D Baker, Allendale and Queen Elizabeth, as well as Clara Tyner Elementary school.

“One of the things we are doing is that we’re going to take a look at some of the design elements of some of our schools to see why we suffered so much damage, to see if there are things that we can either prevent or minimize,” Nicoll adds.

Radmanovich says through all the hard work, he hasn’t heard any negative feedback from students or staff.

“We’re going to be able to accommodate our students as we would normally, it’s just a bit of a hiccup at the beginning of the year for us.”

With files from Shane Jones.