Kids in Texas wildfire town return to school
Kids in Texas wildfire town return to school
12 September 2011
published by www.today.msnbc.msn.com
USA — Paying attention in class may never have been so hard for children who started school Monday after the most-destructive wildfire in Texas history left hundreds of their families homeless and many with little more than the clothes on their backs.
Fed by howling winds whipped up by the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee, flames streaked across drought-stricken Texas, where more than 190 fires statewide have killed four people. The worst damage was in Bastrop, where two smaller fires joined to form a monster blaze that has destroyed more than 1,550 homes and charred more than 34,000 acres.
With firefighters still trying to contain the wildfire and power and water cut off to some areas, many in the Bastrop remain under evacuation orders. School buses stopped Monday at hotels including the Super8, Best Western and Holiday Inn Express to pick up students. Desk clerks said most of the people in the hotels were people displaced by the fires.
The school district provided breakfast and lunch for all students since many families don’t have access to kitchens to pack lunches or make meals, spokesman Donald Williams said. Counselors from across Bastrop, with its charming downtown of quaint, colonial-style streets and shops, as well as health professionals from nearby school districts were called in to help school counselors.
Seven students at Mina Elementary School and four employees have lost their homes so far, principal Martha Werner said. The number could rise as 1,350 firefighters from Texas and around the country get the fire under control and begin assessing damage to individual properties.
Still, only 24 of the schools’ 435 kindergarten through fourth-grade students failed to show for the first day of classes. The tally includes not only students left homeless or forced to move-in with relatives in other communities, but some who fell ill with smoke inhalation or other fire-related problems.
Story: String of blazes takes toll on Texas fire crews
Only 6 percent of students were absent district-wide, spokesman Donald Williams said.
“Today has really been a smooth day,” Werner said. “A lot of smiles from the kids. It looked from afar mostly like a normal day, except for a few more hugs and a little extra loving and attention.”
She added, “I want our school to be a safe place and a happy place because their home life can difficult for some right now.”
