Heavy rains led to flooding across Orange County and the surrounding area overnight Sunday into Monday.
The storm, the last remnants of Hurricane Florence, prompted Chapel Hill – Carrboro City Schools to initially announce a two-hour delay before moving to close schools for the day.
But Orange County Schools and Durham Public Schools proceeded with regular schedules on Monday. Videos and photos on social media showed buses from each district attempting to travel in the conditions.
A photo from a Twitter use showed a Durham Sheriff’s Office vehicle on scene as a Durham Public School bus was stuck across a roadway. Multiple outlets are reporting school staff were on the scene and able to get the children off of the bus.
Meanwhile, a video was posted to Twitter showing an Orange County Schools bus driving through high waters on Old NC 10 Monday morning.
https://twitter.com/dianerabalais/status/1041670404199337984
Orange County Schools issued the following statement regarding its decision to hold normal schedule Monday morning:
“Orange County Schools will be dismissing 2 hours early today due to the potential for additional flooding on the roadways later this afternoon All afterschool activities are canceled. Any student that missed school today will have an excused absence. We apologize for any safety issues this may have caused, in addition to the stress and inconvenience.
“When we make decisions to close or delay or open schools, safety is always our top priority. Though we lead with safety, we might not always get the decision correct. Today is one of those days. We tried to make a decision to keep schools open using the best information we had at the time. We got it wrong, and we apologize for that. We are responsible to you, our community, and we will continue to strive to make our school system and its operations as safe as possible.”
Photo via Christoper Jaques
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