School bells will ring in a frigid return

Temperatures this morning were expected to dip into the teens, so crews were out on Wednesday to ensure classrooms are nice and toasty and buses are up and running for the return of schoolchildren.

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Jim Blaylock/Staff

Riverside Elementary first-grade teachers Kaver Crouch (clockwise, from far left), Shweta Singh, Pam Lillis, Catherine Cox, Amy Coleman, Susan Perrotto and Cecelia Powell have a planning session on January, 2, the day before students return from their Christmas break.

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Jim Blaylock/Staff

A repair crew works on a broken water pipe at Riverside Elementary. Repairs were expected to be completed by the time school resumes today.

Though school has been out for the past couple of weeks for the holidays, crews were on call around the clock to make repairs and returned early to test heating systems.

"We're still going to get a lot of calls tomorrow, but we try to get ahead of them," Richmond County Director of Maintenance and Facilities Benton Starks said Wednesday.

At Joseph R. Lamar Elementary School, for instance, one of the holiday rains flooded the basement when a pump failed to keep water out, he said. When water backed up, it covered the base of the boiler, extinguishing the pilot light.

The flooding didn't "come as a shock or a surprise" to the school's head custodian, Eddie Williams, who discovered the problem during the holiday break.

A year ago, the boiler was completely submerged when the pump stopped working.

"If that pump for any reason stops working, it floods in here," said Greg Scott, the heating, ventilation and air conditioning technician who stopped by to check on things Wednesday.

"We also had a lot of break-ins," Mr. Starks said, citing incidents at Sego Middle School, Jamestown Elementary School and Jenkins-White Elementary Charter School.

Crews were out checking to see if the break-ins affected the heating systems at these schools, he said.

Columbia County Deputy Superintendent Sandra Carraway said the maintenance staff was working on repair projects at two of its schools Wednesday. Maintenance workers replaced a section of pipe to repair a water leak that occurred before the holidays at Riverside Elementary School, and they fixed a heating unit at Lakeside Middle School, she said.

The teachers had a work day Wednesday, said Dr. Carraway, and that gave the staff a chance to "spruce up the building and make sure things are in working order."

Dewayne Porter, the transportation director, said none of the bus drivers reported any problems with their vehicles Wednesday.

"Prior to the break, we had a monthly meeting with our drivers and asked them to crank their buses several times during the holidays," he said. "When the weather is really, really cold, air brakes have a tendency to freeze if there's any condensation."

However, Mr. Porter said these types of brake problems usually occur only after prolonged cold spells, and he did not expect this week's early morning sub-freezing temperatures to cause difficulties.

Although most of the area's schools re-open today, others return later. Jefferson County won't re-open until Wednesday.

Reach Betsy Gilliland at (706) 868-1222, ext. 113, Reach Greg Gelpi at (706) 828-3851.