The hail-damaged Collin County town of Wylie dried out from weekend rain as a school power failure worried storm-stressed parents Monday.
Hail as large as baseballs left widespread damage all over Wylie last week. Schools closed for a day after the storm. Temporary covers left many homes and buildings vulnerable to weekend rainfall.
Workers repairing Birmingham Elementary School in Wylie were stalled by the power failure Monday morning as some classes were held in the parking lot while school officials brought in generators and lanterns to light the building.
“We’re going to try to have the most normal day that we possibly can,” said Wylie Independent School District spokesman Ian Halperin. “We’ve got great students and great teachers, going to make the most of the situation, as we kind of have for the past week.”
Power was restored around lunchtime, but some parents who’ve been struggling to keep things normal for their kids chose to take them home anyway.
“We only have one vehicle. My husband came home, and just decided, let’s go get them now,” parent Michelle Pugh said.
The one car the family has was just purchased because four in their driveway were severely damaged or destroyed in the storm by the giant hail stones.
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“They started coming through our windows, and my wife took the kids and put them in the shower, and it just continued,” husband John Pugh said. “It seemed like it was never going to end. The roof sounded like someone was up there hitting it with a sledgehammer.”
Sunday night he was in the attic with plastic bins to collect rain water coming in through leaks in the roof.
The home was less seriously damaged by an earlier hail storm in March.
“And now it’s another claim and another deductible,” John Pugh said. “Everybody that I know in Wylie has been affected.”
As repairmen got back to work at Birmingham Elementary, school spokesman Ian Halperin voiced the confidence many people are sharing.
“It has been tough in the this week for Wylie, but we’re a strong community, we’re going to come together, we’re going to get past this,” Halperin said.
