Rio Hondo school OKs $100,000 for Dolly repair

RIO HONDO - Weeks into the new school year the school district is continuing to repair damages left by Hurricane Dolly.

On Monday evening, the Rio Hondo Independent School District Board of Trustees approved the proposal to repair the Rio Hondo High School gym floor.

The repairs will cost about $100,000 and Long Flooring will do the work.

"Half the floor buckled," said Joel Carmona, director of maintenance here.

Facility problems start at the roofs, Superintendent Anneliese McMinn in an interview Monday.

"We had a lot of damages," McMinn said, adding that the total damage estimate might be about $500,000 from the July 23 storm.

Along with replacing gym floors, air handlers at the high school blew off with Dolly's wind gusts. In the absence of the air handlers, about 25 inches of rain pooled within the high school.

"It just poured," McMinn said.

A few buildings also had electrical, ceiling and floor damages and the high school band hall lost $2,500 worth of instruments.

Roofs blew off the Disciplinary Alternative Education Program (DAEP) and PAWS buildings, she said.

"Our maintenance department has done a wonderful job, working literally day and night to get the work done," McMinn said.

At Monday's meeting, school officials anticipated that the work on the gym floor is expected to be completed in about seven weeks.

Although volleyball games had to be rescheduled and relocated to another gym, classes haven't been affected.

"We were able to start on time," McMinn said. "We're working closely with the insurance companies and it's a process. We're trying to keep everything as normal as possible."