Brookland Elementary students temporarily relocated after Sydney flood

Students at Cape Breton's Brookland Elementary are being temporarily relocated while officials figure out how to fix the flooded school. 

Sydney, N.S., was slammed by the remnants of Hurricane Matthew and a weather system off the coast of the Carolinas.

Paul Oldford, director of operation services for Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board, spoke to a crowded gymnasium of parents about the board's plans for the flooded school.

He said they hope to have the move done within a week.

Oldford said the water was waist-high in the school and when it receded, it left mud, furnace oil and sewage. "There is quite extensive damage to that lower floor," he said.

"You can see where desks and so forth are overturned — they had been floating in water or pushed around by the pressure. And you can see the staining on the walls where the water had been, the paint blistering where drywall had gotten wet, those are the types of things that are quite evident in the school."

Students going to 2 different schools

The Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board says students in Grade Primary to Grade 3 will be temporarily relocated to Harbourside Elementary and students in Grade 4 and 5 will be temporarily relocated to Shipyard Elementary.

The students from Brookland will still remain with their teachers during the relocations.

"At this point in time we are determining the logistics of transportation and of moving furniture and classroom materials with a view to having the relocation completed within the next week," said Michelle MacLeod, speaking for the school board.

Oldford said anything children left in the school is lost. Now, they need to dry out the school, haul out the ruined things, and check the electrical work.

"The elevator, for example is full of water. We have to get a specialist in to look at that and make sure that's remediated correctly," he said Wednesday evening.

"We're working with our insurer to make sure that we do all the things that are necessary to get the school back in operation as quickly as we can."

He said it will be a while before they can even give a timeline for reopening it.

Classes will stay together

Kim Bungay, a parent at the school, left Wednesday's meeting feeling officials had the situation under control.

"It would have been a complicated situation, because there is not a school that can hold them all," she said.

"The kids are getting to stay with their classes, with their own teachers, just in a different location. My daughter thought that was important. She liked that idea."