School Superintendent: 'We Were Really Unscathed' After Sandy

Three Village school buildings and grounds are in overall good physical condition following superstorm Sandy two weeks ago, according to superintendent Cheryl Pedisich.

The most severe damage occurred at the North Country Administration Center, which suffered roof damage that has yet to be repaired, Pedisich said. Other than that, she said, the turf field at Ward Melville HS was damaged by one of the bleachers falling onto the field and "chewing it up a bit." There was some damage to a fence and some trees were lost.

"We really were unscathed for the most part," Pedisich said. "Compared to other communities, we feel so fortunate in that we did not suffer the same losses or hardships that other districts did. The integrity of the buildings remained."

Three Village students missed six planned school days due to Sandy, which knocked out power to all buildings except Arrowhead Elementary. By Nov. 4, only Gelinas Junior High and W.S. Mount Elementary were without power and Setauket Elementary remained without heat. Students returned to school Nov. 7, though they were dismissed early due to the nor'easter that rolled in and dropped a few inches of snow in the area.

There is no cost estimate yet for the damages associated with Hurricane Sandy.

"We anticipate getting all of our costs reimbursed, if not through insurance then through FEMA, including all our overtime for the maintenance and operations staff," said Jeff Carlson, assistant superintendent for business services.

During Hurricane Irene, the school district spent $72,000 on cleanup efforts; there weren't any costs associated with damage to the buildings due to that storm, though the district spent about $5,000 to rent a generator to power one building that didn't have power. That was all reimbursed by FEMA, Carlson said.

Superstorm Sandy has left the district considering whether generators should be purchased to avoid the same situation in the future.

Carlson said the district does already own a few generators, though they aren't powerful enough to run entire school buildings. He said there is consideration to getting generators powerful enough to run each of the three secondary schools plus one or two mobile generators that could power an elementary school.

"Chances are we're not going to run on generator power at all eight of all of our schools. It's really only if we have one to three schools out. If we have generators that can power them, then we'd be in good shape," Carlson said. "We absolutely want to look into that and see if we can work it into the budget if not right away then over a couple of years."