White fluff covered the grass outside Two Springs Elementary in Bellevue.
It was everywhere — on the roof, wedged between slabs of concrete, stuck to windows. Even inside the building.
“It’s like snow,” Ken Rice, a custodian at the school, said. “Every inch of ground has that fiberglass insulation.”
The tornado and strong winds that blew through the Two Springs neighborhood Friday caused significant damage. The insulation littering the school came from a house across the street. The school itself sustained heavy roof damage. Classrooms and carpets were waterlogged. Trees and fencing outside the building were downed.
Rice and the other custodians had extra help picking up the mess Wednesday evening, when the Twin Springs Parent Teacher Association and members of the community turned out in droves.
More than 100 people — parents, students and people who just wanted to help — showed up, picking up branches and raking up debris.
“There’s just so much little stuff,” Rice said, pausing to direct volunteers to the soccer fields to clear branches. Having parents and students help with tasks around the school took a load off his staff, he said.
About 5 p.m., a Cub Scout troop showed up at the school wanting to help, and from there, PTA President Janelle Shere had a hard time keeping up with the groups that were turning out.
Shere started publicizing the cleanup on Monday, after Kelli Berke, principal of the school, mentioned the idea. Shere spread the message, posting on Facebook and reaching out to the media. Still, she didn’t expect such a turnout.
But Berke wasn’t surprised.
“I’ve only been here a year, but we have a very supportive community,” she said. “I knew they would (turn out). They take a lot of pride in their school.”
School officials still don’t know how much damage the storm caused. Electricity only came back Wednesday afternoon, and the district’s insurance adjuster still needed to assess damage.
Almost every classroom has some sort of damage, Rice said, ranging from water damage to ruined ceiling tiles. Rice has worked at the school seven years.
“We’ve had little winds where we lose a branch or two,” he said. “This is far and beyond anything I’ve seen.”
On the soccer and baseball fields, volunteers cut up downed trees with a chainsaw. A group of five kids carried a nearly 6-foot branch over their heads to the dumpster. Parents picked up bits of roofing that had flown across the soccer field into the cornfield next to the school.
When Isaac Thomson, 8, heard what had happened to his school, his mind instantly jumped to the library. The storm had ripped out part of the library roof, and he worried about the books.
“I thought that there might not be a library until they fix it,” he said. “So many books that are so good.”
But for the most part, Isaac’s school library is safe. The books are shelved along the walls of the room, and avoided the water that poured into the center of the room.
“It’s shocking,” said his mother, Katie Thomson. “You don’t think it would happen this close to home.”
by Natalia Alamdari
June 22, 2017
