Times Staff Writer
LAKE BUTLER — The disruption of city water service presented little problem for the Union County schools on Thursday, Jan. 12, when it began, with the 2 p. m. service interruption occurring just about the time students were dismissed for the day, but when Friday morning rolled around it became a problem that had to be dealt with quickly by faculty, staff and administrators.
Union County School Superintendent Mike Ripplinger said that he was in communication with the city at 8:46 p.m. Thursday night that the repair was complete and that the water tower would need to be drained and that all should be ready in the morning for the schools to operate normally, with water service. He said he checked the schools at 6:30 a.m. and they all had water service. When the second break in the water line occurred about 7:30 a.m. on Friday morning and water service was cut off, students were already off-loading from the buses at the schools.
According to Ripplinger, every school is required to have an evacuation plan in an emergency. In this case, this was complicated by the fact that it did no good to evacuate the students to the pre-planned locations, due to the fact that all of them were dependent on city water service, so alternate sites had to be arranged. He put out a call to all of the district administrators to attend an emergency meeting at the district office to devise a plan.
“We were looking at four areas of concern – the welfare of the students, transportation, communication and food service,” Ripplinger said. “The first thing we did was start calling local churches who were not on the city water system to find a place to send the students we needed to transport. Three, Sardis Baptist Church, Harmony Freewill Baptist Church and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints all graciously opened their doors to our students. They were all incredible and ready to help in any way they could. ”
Ripplinger visited all three sites to ensure their space available and other suitability and found all three more than adequate.
Word of the problem was sent out by Skyward, email, callout and Facebook to try and get as many parents as possible to come to the schools to pick up their students or call the schools to give their students who walked to school permission to walk home. Parents responded quickly to the problem and about 90% of the students were picked up in a period of 90 minutes. Ripplinger said that secure sign-out procedures were followed at all the schools, largely through the efforts of the faculty and staff.
“What transpired between 8:30 and 10 a.m. was truly amazing, with the students taking the whole thing in stride and the parents responding so quickly to the calls,” Ripplinger said. “The whole process was smooth with no problems in any area. All of the parents were very responsive to the situation and courteous in their responses to it. I cannot give enough thanks and praise to our parents in the district. ”
For the students whose parents could not be reached, or who could not make arrangements to come pick them up, Union County School System Director of Transportation Tony Raish quickly mobilized the entire fleet and had it ready to roll. The Union County Sheriff’s Office responded with deputies and they, as well as the office’s school resource officers, provided security and traffic control to make the evacuation of students and their transportation safe.
At 10:10 a.m. 97 students at Lake Butler Middle School started loading on the buses, headed for Harmony Freewill Baptist Church. Shortly after that, the 126 remaining students at Lake Butler Elementary School began loading for their trip to Sardis Baptist Church. Thanks to the quick mobilization of food service departments at each school by their managers, spearheaded by Food Service Director Betsy Whitehead, each student was handed a bag lunch as they got on the buses. School staff and faculty traveled with their students to the off-campus sites.
Union County High School was unique in that the majority of the students either drove themselves home or were picked up, so the remaining 10-12 students were able to stay at the school. All of the schools in the district maintain a supply of water on site in case of any problem and bag lunches were provided to them as well.
Buses returned to the evacuation sites at the proper time for the end of the school day, although many students had already been picked up by their parents. Students who were regular bus riders were transported to their homes at the normal time, while walkers were returned to the school to take their usual route home. Less than 100 students needed the bus rides by the time they were released.
“The whole day was truly amazing,” Ripplinger said. “Every area of the school system came together and made things run smoothly with no problems. Everyone stepped up and did what needed to be done and saw that it was done well. It is very rewarding to have such great people on staff in our district. Kudos to them all.”
