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MCS eyes reopening in a month
Devastated and all by Super Typhoon Yutu’s over 200 mph winds, Mt. Carmel School may still reopen in a month, according to MCS president Galvin Deleon Guerrero.
Deleon Guerrero noted in an interview with Saipan Tribune yesterday that the classrooms of the private school are intact despite some flooding. With the classrooms in fairly good shape, he suspects the school could be reopened in a month.
“…The classrooms are fine,” he said during the school cleanup yesterday morning, which was attended by about 100 high school students and some other parent volunteers. “Right now, it is a matter of restoring power and water, maybe even internet access,” he said, adding that water pumps and water tanks in the school are fine while the school is in the process of procuring generators.
He noted, though, that both the library and the MCS gym remained heavily damaged.
“…The library I’ve already declared that it was off-limits to everybody—[the library] is going to take professional work. The gym was bad before but we were able to make it work [but] this is bad, the gym is 100 percent gone,” he said.
The MCS campus also sustained damage to their walkways, the playground, and their iconic campus tree, which was planted by students from the Class of 1977.
“They planted that tree in 1977 and it withstood all those storms until now. We’ve got to clear this for the safety of our [students],” he said.
Deleon Guerrero said Typhoon Jean’s rampage in 1968 was the previous “worst storm to hit the Marianas.”
“Fifty years ago the school got devastated by Typhoon Jean. At the time, Fr. Arnold Bendowski and the Mercedarian Sisters did not have Federal Emergency Management Agency, insurance, and the resources that we had, but they were able to rebuild,” he said.
