By Charles Betzler
The EF-1 force winds we experienced on Father’s Day weekend caused major damage at the Pretty Water School campus. The roof was torn off the pre-K building, fencing was ripped away, an air conditioning-heating unit was torn off the roof, and the bus barn was completely destroyed.
Five days later, volunteers were dealing with the damage and cleaning up debris left in the wake of the violent storm.
According to Robert Gaches, a teacher at Pretty Water who was at the school working to clean up the property and repair the damage, told the Sapulpa Herald there is no dollar estimate because the insurance adjuster has not yet come to assess the damage.
“It ripped the roof off the Pre-K Building, demolished the bus barn, we own that blue building on the other side, it dented the doors and busted out some windows on it. It ripped the roof off the taller cream-colored building over here, it pulled it up, and it came back down. A lot of panels on the other side are missing.”
Consistent with the damage seen throughout the area, there were many trees damaged. “It tore up a lot of trees. We have already cleaned the whole west side of the softball field, that side had trees torn up all the way down it. We have spent the last three days cutting them down,” said Gaches. He pointed out an area on the end of the football that had major tree damage. “On our nature trails, it uprooted two of those.”
Gaches said that there are three buses in the demolished barn, along with the school truck and a small tractor. “The school truck is in there too, and we know it caved the top of it in a little and broke off the mirror.” When asked about the condition of the buses, he said: “we have no idea what the damage is until we can get the roof and all the stuff off of it and get those buses out and have them inspected. We have spent the last four days cleaning up, and once we get started on that (bus barn), it will probably be several days on that.”
Gaches, who has been at Pretty Water for 32 years, teaches English and Outdoor education. He says he does whatever is needed around the school.
Gaches had one positive thing to say about the damage: at least school wasn’t in session when it happened.
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