SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — Fans are drying out the classrooms at Bancroft Elementary after Monday's storm flooded most of the classrooms.
The aftermath of several inches of rain falling within hours forced Bancroft Elementary in Spring Valley to close.
"So fourteen inches of water, approximately, were on this quad. What we heard from our staff is that you actually couldn't see the top of those lunch tables out there," said Robert Cochran, director of business services for La Mesa-Spring Valley Schools.
He said the principal described the scene as a river of water flowing down from the two surrounding hills flooding 32 classrooms.
"The only dry place in the school was this auditorium— this multipurpose room over here. He brought all of his students inside this auditorium," said Cochran.
Those students were then arranged for buses to be on-site in case the campuses needed to be evacuated
He said on Tuesday Bancroft was still underwater.
"So if you come in, what you'll see if that we really need is, we need the dry out time," he said as he showed off one of the classrooms.
He isn't sure how long that will take but says student and staff safety is the number one priority.
Those students and staff are now 5 minutes down the road at Spring Valley Academy.
"Potentially, if that's successful then shampoo everything… again another dry out before classes would resume," said Cochran.
He said the same day the classroom flooded crews were on site beginning clean-up efforts.
"The price tag can range in the several hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars for what we're looking at. I don't mean that just at Bancroft. I mean that at other sites across the district," said Cochran.
