School with sewer problems
Elrod School Principal Jeff Hornby, left, supervises as students line up to use the portable toilets erected along the south side of the school building Monday. A leak in the sewage line that occurred Friday left the school with no workable plumbing, so outdoor toilets were brought in to serve the students Monday. By late afternoon, a crew from Goose Bay had repaired the faulty seal on the sewer pipe. Hornby said he spent his entire work day Monday outside supervising the students. Karen Nichols photos/Daily Inter Lake
Elrod Elementary copes without sewer services
By NICHOLAS LEDDEN - The Daily Inter Lake
Cases of bottled water lined an inside hallway and a row of portable toilets sat like so many sentries Monday along the outside wall of Elrod Elementary School in Kalispell.
The school?s sewer system suffered a failure of catastrophic proportions Friday, flooding the basement and rendering toilet facilities unusable.
To hold classes Monday, officials had to import toilets and drinking water for students and teachers alike.
But after a weekend of intense cleanup, everything should be back to normal today, Principal Jeff Hornby said.
?We should be back to business as usual,? Hornby said. ?We spent the bulk of the weekend making sure we could have school? Monday.
?It took a lot of coordination, but I think we?re managing pretty well,? he added.
Custodians at the school first noticed sewage water in the basement about noon Friday. By the end of the day, 4 to 5 inches of contaminated water had settled downstairs.
School officials had a professional cleanup crew at work in the building?s basement by 2 p.m. Friday, and construction crews ripped a 12-foot-deep hole in Fifth Street West to get at the problem?s source Monday.
?No students are ever in the area where there was that contamination,? Hornby said.
Some supplies were damaged and all the contaminated material has been thrown out, Hornby said.
The culprit seems to be a faulty seal on the sewer pipe leading to a manhole. After the pipe?s integrity was broken, gravel filtered in and caused a blockage. With nowhere else to go, wastewater backed up into the school?s basement.
For students, the extra activity of going outdoors represented a break from the familiar normalcy of just another school day.
?The kids have been very good,? Hornby said.
Reporter Nicholas Ledden can be reached at 758-4441 or by e-mail at nledden@dailyinterlake.com