Valley Stream schools weather the storm
Officials from Valley Stream’s four school districts reported no major damage at the community’s 14 public school buildings after Hurricane Irene passed through this past weekend.
In District 13, one tree fell outside the James A. Dever School on North Corona Avenue. Superintendent Dr. Adrienne Robb-Fund said the tree was near the main entrance, but fell onto a grassy area.
During the storm, the Dever, Willow Road and Howell Road schools all had no power at some point, but were back up and running by Monday. Robb-Fund said several power trucks from other states including Ohio and Michigan, here to help the Long Island Power Authority with the storm cleanup, used the Dever parking lot as a resting point.
District 30 lost power at the Clear Stream Avenue School. That is where the district’s servers are housed, so it shut down the computer network and email when staff returned on Monday.
Superintendent Dr. Elaine Kanas said there was some water in the lobby of the Forest Road School in Mill Brook but it caused no damage. The building also lost partial power.
In District 24, some branches came down but Assistant Superintendent Dan Onorato said that two week earlier, the district hired a tree trimming company to take down some dead limbs and old trees on the property of the three schools. “It really paid off, thank goodness,” he said.
There were a few small leaks at Memorial Junior High School, according to Dr. Bill Heidenreich, superintendent of the Central High School District. However, he said there was no extensive damage beyond a few ceiling tiles needing to be replaced.
No trees came down on high school district property and a power outage at North High School was fixed by Sunday night. “We really came out good,” he said, “other than maybe our fields being a little wet.”
