Principal Mike Kelley walks through a hallway in Herbert Hoover High School that is filled with slick mud near Clendenin on Monday. The first floor hallways and rooms of the school are caked in 3 to 5 inches of mud, which was left by 6 feet of flood water that swamped the building late last week. The boiler room alone was filled with 10 feet of water.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — At Herbert Hoover High School near Clendenin, 3 to 5 inches of mud still coated the entire first floor Monday, an unwelcome gift left by 6 feet of flood water that swamped the school and may prevent it from starting classes on time next school year.
About 5 miles down the road, at Bridge Elementary School in Elkview, the flood filled the school with 3 feet of water, destroying classrooms, the kitchen and cafeteria and the computer lab.
And at Elkview Middle School, custodians worked Monday to suck up muddy water from the school’s floors, while piles of donated clothes sat in the parking lot, residents dropping them off and picking them up at their leisure. Next to the school’s baseball field is a trash pile 30 feet high, a frontloader and a backhoe working to haul away the remnants of ruined homes.
Clendenin Elementary School also suffered about as much damage as Bridge…
