The Great Flood of 2008 at EHS

I've been getting some phone calls from friends and family asking about Eureka High School, where I work. We've been on spring break for the last week, so I haven't personally been out there to see anything. I've been getting my information from e-mails and the news reports (one of which I heard on an NPR program that was nationally syndicated. They gave an update on the high school, too. Pretty crazy to hear about your work place on national news!) The pictures below were sent to me from a co-worker, and the following information is what I found out today from e-mails and phone calls.

The school grounds have been affected by the flooding, but not the building itself. The river has crested and the water is receding, so they aren't expecting that it will harm the building...thankfully. These pictures explain it pretty well. Our baseball fields are to the left of the building, completely under water. In front of the building (where you can see all of the light posts sticking out of the water) is where our student parking lot is...also completely under water. I've gotten a few e-mail from the principal of EHS and the superintendent of Rockwood, and they are expecting school to resume on Monday. This, of course, will depend on whether or not the water recedes from the student parking lot and the debris is cleared out in time. We are over the amount of allotted "snow days," so any additional days off will have to be made up at the end of the year. However, I have a lot of grading & planning that didn't get done over the break, so I'm kind of hoping for another day. :)
Enjoy the pictures of my school!

(Just click on the pictures to see them more clearly. Sorry about the transparency thing...I still haven't figured out how to fix that.)

I'm sure you can figure it out, but EHS is the building in the upper left-center of the picture. The road in front of the school is Hwy 109. I grew up about 5 miles north of here. (On higher ground.)

Contrary to what I heard at first, the football field is not flooded. The tennis courts are up on a hill, so they were okay too. But the poor, poor baseball field.
This is an aerial shot of the entire area. Hwy 109 is in the middle. To the right of 109 is the Meramec Valley and river...which has expanded its shores. This same river is what caused the major flooding in the Valley Park area. That area has been on the local and national news a lot! To the left of the road is EHS and its parking lot & baseball fields. You can also see that the water got really close to a subdivision in the bottom right corner of the picture. Looks like most of those homes are safe. Hwy 44 is just south of this picture.