Schools Back To Normal After Storm-Shelter Stints

Millwood and Seth Woodard are schools again.

Few traces were left on Monday morning to show that the two West Valley schools had undergone an adventure for several days as a Red Cross storm shelter.

Millwood held people ranging from infants to the elderly, some with medical conditions, some needing oxygen, from Tuesday through Sunday.

Seth Woodard was open twice for shorter times.

Classrooms at Millwood no longer held comfy groupings of canvas cots, Neat stacks of pajamas and knapsacks were gone. So was the sleep-over feel.

The numbers on the doors at Millwood referred once again to kindergarten classes, not to virtual bedrooms for storm refugees. Room No. 1 is back to being the boardroom and is no longer the special handicapped bedroom.

The West Valley district paid janitors and a couple of aides to help keep order in the buildings for a couple of days.

The Millwood school’s carpets will need an early shampoo, said principal Dan Kelly.

“Any time you have 125 people literally living in your building, there is going to be some aftermath,” he said. “Beyond that, I have nothing but praise for the way they left everything.”

Thanks in part to donations by Albertsons and other local merchants, the kitchen was better stocked than it was a week ago.

“We ended up with more food than we started with.”

, DataTimes