CUSICK, Wash. – Water flooded Cusick Junior Senior High School after a pipe burst over the weekend, sending every student across the district home for the week while crews stayed on campus to repair the damage.“We’re very resilient here, our families are supportive, our staff is supportive, we’ll get through this,” Cusick Superintendent Don Hawpe said.It has been a hectic week for the Cusick School District after a pipe burst sometime Saturday night, sending water through the walls, flowing into classrooms, hallways, the library and cafeteria.“It was standing water, still squirting when Jack found it, so we got it shut off,” Hawpe said.The Panther team discovered the damage on Sunday. Only a few areas were left untouched across the joint high school-middle school building. The elementary school was closed this week, as well, because the building where the flooding occurred is where all students across the district receive and usually eat lunch.Hawpe said every winter, he and his team are more concerned about snow build-up possibly causing flooding, rather than a pipe bursting, most likely because of below-freezing temperatures.“You hope that it doesn’t happen, because our snow slides off the roof, we’re down here a lot keeping it away from the building, we’re more worried about that than a pipe breaking,” he said. “You never know in those frigid temperatures, if a heating system goes down and you don’t know it on a Saturday night, you can be in trouble.”The water has been cleaned up and now the primary focus is on making sure air flows through the school, to prevent any further damage – like molding.Approximately 265 students between grades K-12 are out of school this week.Hawpe said the plan is for school to be back in session, at least for the elementary school students, Monday, Jan. 29. Middle school and high school students may need to perform hybrid activities for a few days, depending on the repair progress this week.Because Cusick schools are only in session four days a week, Hawpe said lost time will be made up throughout the rest of the year on designated Fridays.
