About a thousand New Jersey students will be forced to start the year learning remotely after the remnants of Hurricane Ida severely damaged their school.
According to NJ Advance Media, Cresskill Middle / High School is likely to remain closed until 2022 after being decimated by the storm.
The school, located in the swamp area, was covered in mud and hardly recognizable after being mostly underwater Wednesday night, Superintendent Michael Burke told the dam.
“We went through Hurricane Sandy and there were kids canoeing in the parking lot, but it never got into the building,” Burke said. “That had never happened.”
According to the article, the historic wave of rain in Bergen County left most of the school with 3-foot water lines. The janitor was reportedly forced to spend the night in the gym, the only part of the school that was not flooded.
“I knew this was something we’ve never seen,” Burke said.
“Between 30 seconds and a minute I knew we had to start at a distance.”
According to the article, the storm left the school full of mold, damaged the air conditioning equipment and destroyed its boiler room.
According to reports, the district received permission from Trenton to conduct virtual classes next week and officials expect to move to off-campus face-to-face learning in November.
“There is little chance that this building is about to be ready by 2022, at the earliest,” Burke said.
The death toll from the storm in New Jersey rose to Saturday the 27th. Six people remain missing.