As Hurricane Katrina approached South Florida, Broward County Public Schools began its preparations. Schools began getting their campuses in order while administrators met with county emergency management officials to monitor the storm’s progress.

Once it was clear the storm would be making landfall in South Florida, District officials immediately took action. The Superintendent of Scho ols decided in the early afternoon Wednesday (8/24) to cancel school for that Thursday and Friday. The decision to cancel schools was based on many factors, the most important of which was the safety of our students, faculty and staff. In addition, many of our schools are used as storm shelters and time was needed to get them ready.

After the storm passed, our schools, like the rest of Broward, suffered from power outages, downed trees and some damage to buildings, specifically roof damage to some portables. Luckily, none of our permanent facilities experienced serious structural damage. Just over 100 District locations were without power as Katrina made her way into the Gulf of Mexico.

Once the situation in the county was safe, District maintenance workers began the process of clearing away debris while other employees worked with county officials to coordinate the restoration of power to our schools. The goal was to get the District up and running by Monday, August 29th – and we did just that.

There were only two or three schools that still had power issues when we opened on Monday, but those were resolved during the day. While we were very lucky that Hurricane Katrina was “only” a category 1 storm when she arrived, we still felt the wrath of Mother Nature.