School Reopening Bogs Down Boundary County Detour Muddy; Buses To Try Again

Sixth-grade teacher Lori Reynolds will be up before the sun today so she can get to school on time.

That is, if school isn’t canceled again.

“I need a good hour or so just to get into school,” said Reynolds, who lives near Moyie Springs in eastern Boundary County and teaches in Bonners Ferry.

Like everyone else who lives north of the mudslide that closed U.S. Highway 95, Reynolds has to take a long detour to get to town.

Schools are scheduled to open today for the first time in two weeks. They were supposed to reopen Thursday, but the detour route the school district had arranged was muddy and impassable.

It was the third time in two weeks that officials had planned to reopen schools but couldn’t because of the lack of a decent bus route.

Transportation officials declared the District 2 Blume Hill route safe for bus travel Thursday afternoon. It is to be open today only to school buses.

The announcement means that Reynolds and other families can get on with their daily lives - even if their routines are altered somewhat.

A drive that normally takes 15 or 20 minutes now takes at least 45 minutes.

Reynolds got up at 5:15 a.m. Thursday, thinking there would be school.

She and her two children were disappointed it was canceled.

“They miss their friends, and it’s been a real interruption of routines,” she said.

Evergreen and Mount Hall elementary schools’ Principal Dan Meeker got a call at 5:15 a.m. Thursday telling him school had been canceled.

He called teachers who were ready to head out the door at 5:30 a.m.

And as teachers return to the classroom, they’ll have to review what’s already been taught.

“It’s like starting over, almost. It’s going to put a dent in a few things,” Meeker said. “That’s part of living in North Idaho. You have to roll in the punches.”

That was Brandon Johnson’s attitude Thursday. The 11-year-old Valley View Elementary School student spent the afternoon playing football with his brother and schoolmates.

“When I got up this morning, I was kind of glad there was school today,” he said. “Then my mom told me there wasn’t any school, and I was still glad.”

Candi Kelly’s children have been mostly playing around the house. She’s been confused by the continually changing announcements about school.

“I’d like to see the kids back in school,” she said. “I’m just biding my time and thinking that the school officials are trying to make the best decision.”

The school district has struggled to come up with a solution to the transportation problem since the slide struck two weeks ago.

First, school officials contemplated holding classes without bus transportation north of Bonners Ferry, because school bus drivers balked at driving the narrow District 5 road, which is the local detour around the slide.

That idea was scrapped, and the school district planned to use the route the county had set up for emergency vehicles through private land. The owner had given the school district permission to use it.

But Boundary County commissioners didn’t like that idea.

“We had a much safer route on our roads. County roads are maintained for vehicular traffic,” Commissioner Merle Dinning said. “This was a logging road opened up for a skidder.”

Dinning had the same dim view of the district’s latest plan to use another short detour over private property not far from the emergency route.

That was the route that the school district’s bus superintendent found impassable Thursday morning after a rainstorm.

“Sometime during late evening and in the morning a truck went through there and tore it up pretty good,” Superintendent Reid Straabe said.

But the District 2 route isn’t perfect either. It’s not much longer than the direct route up Highway 95 and is mostly paved, but it has a long, steep gravel hill.

And, once it’s open to general traffic, officials might declare it a one-way route north, while southbound traffic is sent down the District 5 road.

If it snows, “then we’ll have to readdress everything,” Dinning said. “Normally we do not maintain them for winter use just because of their steepness. And District 5, because it’s in a shaded draw, it’s hard to maintain properly.

County and school officials are hoping that the reconstruction of the old Highway 95 route is complete before the snow flies. State officials on Thursday said that the work was ahead of schedule, which means it should be complete in about another week.

The state also has pledged to help maintain the detour routes as long as Highway 95 is closed.

Staff writer Jesse Tinsley contributed to this report.