Storm damage forces Island school to relocate

Remi Arsenault is relieved his school-age children will soon be back in class after two weeks off. Their school — É​cole Évangé​line in Abram-Village — was heavily damaged in post-tropical storm Fiona. It's now the last remaining school on Prince Edward Island to be closed after the storm. 

Next Tuesday, Arsenault's children will return to classes, but not in the school's original building. Instead, they'll join more than 200 other students from the school at the nearby L'Exposition Agricole and Festival Acadien grounds.  

"It's a sad thing on one side to see the school in the state that it is and having the the kids to change their routine and everything, but at the same time it's wonderful that they get to stay in the community and close by," said Arsenault.

"The location here is great. There's a lot of rooms and a lot of space and they're well taken care of here at the village musicale."

Unlike the École Évangéline building, the fairgrounds were largely untouched by Fiona. Over the past week, school staff have been salvaging what they could from the damaged school and bringing it to their new makeshift classrooms at the fairgrounds. 

"We've established classrooms in different buildings, we hauled some furniture, some curriculum guides, anything that we would need to teach our students," said Gilles Arsenault, superintendent of the French Language School Board. 

"There is a lot of hard work and a lot of time and effort put into moving a lot of the stuff that was at the Évangéline School."

In addition to moving furniture and supplies between the sites, staff have been working to winterize the buildings, which are typically used only in the summer months. Over the past week, 10 heat pumps have been installed.

Staff say it's all coming together quickly.

"The classrooms are all set up and we're doing final little fixtures and techie things and all, but hopefully at least ready to go in an OK way," said school principal Dominique Morency.

Students won't be returning to classes in the original school building anytime soon. Extensive damage to the original school's roof will take months to fix.  

Over the coming months, workers will seal off the most heavily damaged wing of the school so that students can use the other end of the building while repairs continue.

Officials estimate it will take at least three months to get a portion of the old school fixed up enough to move back in.