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Thursday, September 24, 2009

A Flood of Tears............

There has been flooding in Georgia this week. Torrential rain fell over the weekend and on in to Monday. The first picture here is of kids being evacuated from Clarkdale Elementary School on Monday afternoon.......the second picture is the same school on Tuesday morning......

















I don't know any of these children, but I know the school.

I spent 13 years living across the street from this small, neighborhood school. When I moved into the house I was a young mom with 3 children, ages 4, 2 1/2 and 1. When we left Georgia 13 years later, I was a much more seasoned and experienced mother of 6 children, and every one of them had attended this school.

Though it's been 9 years since we lived there, we still have many, many fond memories of Clarkdale. I would venture to say that at least one of my grown children still has their 5th grade, graduating class t-shirt from Clarkdale. It was a great school to grow up with. An anomaly in today's world of education, the school had only about 400 students from Kindergarten to 5th grade. The class sizes were kept small and they would work together on many projects to help and encourage one another. It was a family as well as a school. After all these years, they still have the same Principal and many of the same teachers.

News reports say the the school will most likely not re-open. The damage was too severe, and the fear of future flooding dictates that they re-build elsewhere.

This video shows the damage more extensively than the pictures. Around the 1 minute mark the camera pans past a yellow house. That's the house my family called home for so many years.

http://www.wsbtv.com/video/21068665/index.html

They say that home is where the heart is.....I found out this week that at least part of my heart is still in Georgia.

3 comments:

Jenna said...

How sad to see a great school ruined!

diane said...

What a loss for those families, the community and all the kids who grew up there.

My kids love driving by the old elementary school to see how it has changed.

MARCIE said...

Oh my gosh Liz, that is unbelievable. To see your old house under water!