School Flooding

8/23/2018 (Permalink)

This flooded classroom was caused by recent flash flooding.

August 13 was a day of devastation for many in Columbia County as well as other counties. SERVPRO of Columbia, Montour & Sullivan County was performing water and flood damage cleanup for residences even before the Monday storm. On Tuesday morning, the Benton School District contacted Tom Hess and indicated help was needed at the L. Ray Appleman Elementary school: several class rooms, hallways, bathrooms, and large numbers of contents were damaged by flooding.

SERVPRO personnel Tom Hess, Jennifer West, part time personnel Mason Hill and Destinee Good arrived after 12:00 PM and met with the staff to decide how best to tackle the cleanup. School is scheduled to open on Wednesday, August 22. The school staff: Jim Hartkorn, John Hook, Mark Force, Jeff Kelsey, Steve Diltz, Zanna Kinney, Melissa Hudack, James Mathews and Jim Matthews were all very hard working individuals and made the SERVPRO personnel feel welcome and part of the crew.

The school staff took care of moving contents (desks, chairs, cabinets, misc items) out of the rooms. They then removed the heavy amounts of mud. SERVPRO personnel did the detail cleaning of the floors, walls, contents. SERVPRO moved many of the contents back into the classrooms.

From Tuesday afternoon to Friday at 2:00 PM, the SERVPRO crew, aided by Adam Prukala and Makayla Hill, and the excellent staff at the Benton Elementary school worked diligently and cooperatively to complete the interior cleaning and prepare for the teachers to set up their classrooms for the coming year.