Recently on the 12th and 13th of November the east coast or more specifically the outer banks of North Carolina and Virginia were hit by a perfect storm combining the remains of Hurricane Ida and a low pressure system coming out of the north east. This storm system labeled a perfect storm and something that hadn't been seen since hurricane Isabell or the ash Wednesday storm from the 60's produced hurricane force winds of 75mph and caused millions of dollars in damage from Cape Hatteras all the way up to Hampton Roads with some of the most notable damage taking place in Currituk island and Norfolk and creating a tourist attraction in Sandbridge where a giant cargo barge became grounded infront of a very ugly condo facility on the beach and threatening a recently built fishing pier.
On the evening of the 11th the governor of the state Timothy Kaine called a state of emergency as rain and wind began to pick up inland with the approach of Ida's remains coming out of the south west, all weather forecasts showed that we would be getting hit with 4 - 6 inches of rain and some moderate flooding mostly in low lying area's and along the coast and strong winds. Around 3am when I awoke I found that the canal in my backyard had risen above the top of the retaining wall and creaping up in the back yard at a pretty good pace and for the record the water level is usually 8 inches below the top of the retaining wall. At 4:30am I moved my van up the street because it was flooding at a pretty quick rate as well which prompted a later move in the morning. By 5am I was watching the local news station and monitoring news reports online looking to see if my daughters school was closed and if mine was as well because the winds were really kicking up and the water was arising.
Thankfully my daughters school was closed at 5:30am but I could not find information on mine being closed and calls to the front desk up to 7:30am provided no more information but across the screen the sister school ( ECPI ) of my school ( ATI ) was shown and drawing from information given to us during our orientation where we were told that ATI followed the same policies as ECPI I stopped calling and focused on the rising flood waters and high winds which by midnight had risen to our front door and put our street 3 feet below the surface of the water and had blown siding off nearby homes and flooded our living room and garage. At 3am the water had receeded back about 2 inches but the wind continued so again I watched the news and all of the schools in the region were showing as closed including ECPI but with one difference, the day before ATI had also shown up later in the morning but it was not so at 6:45 I sent an email to my instructor stating that I would not be coming into class because I was not going to wade through waist deep water to get to my van three blocks away because of some fool running the school that felt it more important to keep it open during an emergency declaration.
Ok to shorten things a bit, on the 16th while in school I found out that the school had actually been open during the 12th and 13th and that anyone who was not in school those days had to email the director of education a reason for not being there despite the fact that 50+ roads and freeways and tunnels were closed due to flooding as well as the city of Norfolk and Virginia Beach both which suffered moderate to severe flooding that was upwards of 10ft deep. So after school I sent off a long email to the D.O.E. outlining my reasons for not being at school along with two photo's of the lake at my front door. Well the following day on the 17th I was informed by my instructor that we had to go see the D.O.E. at 9:30am, so when the time came we went and I had my meeting with Mr. P.
Walking into his office my instructor introduced me and the first thing Mr. P said to me was that he was one of the people who ran the school and that he wanted to meet the man that called him a fool and he reached out to shake my hand and being polite I shook it and then proceeded to explain clearly why I had been upset about the school being open. I made it clear that I felt it was a bad decision to have the school open on both days of an emergency because it was putting students and faculty members lifes at risk and that it bothered me that it seemed to be for nothing more than money and that I expected better decision making out of the school leaders. Another thing that I pointed out was that ATI was one of two schools open on the 12th and the other school closed early after a few thousand parents called the school administration as well as the local tv and newspapers angry about the very same thing I was. It was at this point that the registrar jumped in to say that one of the local school systems didn't cancell classes until 5am and that I would get better help by not calling people fools at which point I cut her off and said that I along with others are paying to go to the school and we expect its leaders to use common sense.
So the meeting ended with my two days being excused and nothing more, I consider it a win because when it comes down to it not a sinlg member of the regents or leadership or what ever you want to call them had a leg to stand on for keeping the school open. Had someone tried coming and got cuaght in flood waters or been in the wrong place when a tree was felled by the wind which we had some huge tree's come down and this person or that person was hurt or killed it would have been bad news for the school. A few things that I learned also from this meeting is that the senior faculty are reading all emails going through the school system and the mass emergency email system does not work properly as I never received an email that was supposed to have been sent out and that communication within the administration office is seriously flawed.
big65mopar
