Jackson County Closes School Friday for Flood Risk

Jackson County Schools will be closed for a second day Friday because of continued flooding concerns.

Director of Schools Kristy Brown said she made the decision after speaking with emergency officials and road department heads.

“They’ve been out on the roads and assessing the areas. In collaboration with them, it’s not just the situation at the school that we’re dealing with,” Brown said. “There’s still water running over the roads in some areas and parts of the road are deteriorating. So there’s some concern with transportation and getting students to school.”

Flood waters entered Gainesboro Elementary Wednesday night, forcing the cancellation of school on Thursday.

Brown thanked the administration at the elementary school for their efforts in cleaning up the flood waters.

“I want to give credit to the administration of Gainesboro Elementary as well as staff that came in to help last up into the morning and then came back again today,” Brown said. “They have all the water out of the building and getting those floors dried off, so it’s pretty dry in the building at this point.”

Brown said Thursday evening’s forecast called for more rain which prompted officials to close school Friday as a precaution.

“We’ve had our maintenance crew to work on that to put sandbags outside the door just as a precaution to keep water out of the building as much as possible in the event it were to happen,” Brown said. “The furniture and things like that are in places where if it were to happen, then hopefully it would be less damage.”

Jackson County is currently under a flash flood watch Thursday evening until midnight.