High school students in the Seymour Community School District are beginning 2018 taking classes in a former nursing home on the east side of town. They remain displaced after a tornado seriously damaged their school building last year.
The EF2 tornado packing 115 mile-per-hour wind hit the Wayne County town of 700 last March. It ripped the roof off the gymnasium at the K-12 schoolhouse, and severely damaged classrooms. Seymour school superintendent Brad Breon says elementary students are back in their wing of the building, and he plans to have everyone else there by the end of the month.
“We’re trying to get the old three-story building up and ready, and get the students back into it," he says. "We’re getting very close. We’ve got a new heating system in it, all new windows, and we’re just finishing off the rooms now.”
Breon says students will move back in before all of the repair work is complete.
“We hope by the end of this month is our goal," he says. "And then starting in the spring, we’ll start building back the gymnasium and the facilities that were blown away by the storm.”
Breon estimates the cost of repairs at $10 million, much of it covered by insurance and a bond issue for renovations planned before the tornado.