Storm on St. Lawrence Island Part 1

The weather called for a big storm to hit the island. Flood warnings, high wind advisories, and the biggest storm on record to come. Everyone is having to evacuate their homes and camp at the school for a couple days. As a native put it, "The teachers are on the front line" meaning the teacher housing is the first thing those tidal waves will see. The warnings was in effect from 1pm Tuesday, Nov. 8 - Wednesday at midnight. 

Last night we finally got to go back to our homes to see if there was any damages. One teacher had the boards blown off her windows and pictures hanging on the walls fell but other than that everyone and thing seemed to survive (as for the teachers). I am nervous to see how many students come to school today and what conditions they say their housing is in. I know that helping direct people Tuesday night was a bittersweet experience. The students of course thought it was to coolest thing to sleep at school and hangout with all of the teachers however, the families knew what would be happening to their homes. All and all I was just trying to keep everyone clam and find them something to take their minds off of the storm, while Ty was running all around the school making sure families had their supplies and a place to call home for a night. 

I think it was about 10:30 when Ty and I finally were getting ready for bed and of course the fire alarm goes off... I will not get into the details of that now but it was a long night. At about midnight I would say the eye of the storm was over us and it was finally calm, however at about 2 or 3am the back half of the storm started to pass and that caused the winds to shift again. This time banging hard on my classroom window where we were trying to sleeping.

The next morning Ty was up at about 5am and I was up at about 6. We were still wondering if we had school, just like everyone else. So we went down to the office and found out that school had been canceled, however, it was still an in-service day. I was really happy to hear that. It was also fun to go around to our sleeping or half sleeping students to tell them that school was canceled. : ) 

At about 9 or 10am the principal and her husband took us up to the beach where we finally got to see the waves! Holly cow!! They were a sight. It was still pretty dark out, the sun doesn't rise until about 11 here, so when we were at the beach we turned off the lights on the Hondas to get a better view.  All of the sudden this wall of white comes right towards us! Ty flipped the Honda into reverse and we had to back up about 5 feet! Needless to say it was an adventure, one we will never forget! Here are some of the pictures that I am sure everyone is waiting for! 

 

These pictures are from Wednesday morning: 

These are pictures from the teacher that lives next to us looking down to the beach. Normally you can't see the actual beach because the water level is about 30 feet lower. This is high waters and high surf.

Teachers and staff at the beach... 

It was CRAZY!

These are pictures from the night before:

The view outside my window as it all starts.. mostly rain right now..

Teachers setting up to spend the night in Lacy's room!

Lacy has a stove in her SPED room and her students thought it would be funny to hide some books in the oven. Why the oven mitts? Lacy was preheating the oven to make dinner when she found the books!!

White out at about 5:30 Tuesday night.

The view from the front of the school, this is actually in the sequence about shot three or four

This would be shot 2

This is about shot 3

This was when it was still raining.. this is shot 1

The clinic moved into the Kindergarten room for the night...

Some students working hard on coloring sheets I made for them.

And of course playing on ipads!

This was the same shot in front of the school at about 8pm

This was the same shot in front of the school at about 7pm

Ty was in charge of getting the animals to school too... This is him and Mila one of the other teachers new puppies.. of course now Ty REALLY wants a puppy!!