On January 22nd of 2024, one of the most catastrophic flash floods had occurred in San Diego, which
left millions of dollars in damages across the county. Many San Diegans were left homeless and helpless, without having proper protection for such an incident especially this early within the year. Also left completely unprepared were all schools within the district which were all left completely flooded leaving campuses to be completely inaccessible to both students and staff members. With similar weather conditions up and coming, there are a plethora of reasons for school days to be canceled for the safety and health for everyone.
Similar to snow days, having days off due to heavy rain and/or flooding should be implemented within west coast schools due to the weather conditions to get in and out of school. Senior Erick Portillo stated ‘Taking the bus in that weather took forever to get everyone picked and dropped off with the traffic and roads closing everywhere, we all got the flood alert before we even got to school”. Snow day qualifications are made to see if a student walking to campus can make it safely or not, and with multiple instances of people and being swept by flood currents I believe that flash flooding should also be in that category.
Adding to the issues on campus, the draining systems and the way campus is built leaves many sections of the school to be completely flooded and unable to be accessible to students, teachers, and staff members without ending up completely drenched.
Senior Hunter George exclaimed “ If I didn’t have rain boots I wouldn’t have been able to get to my classes, the 200 building was completely blocked off, people had to jump bench to bench and cling near the walls to not destroy their clothes or end up falling in the rivers that were made, I saw people just give up and end up walking through them just to get to their classes, with lines of students creating traffic in the hallways”. George added “I was late to almost every class and was still marked tardy for it,” in frustration that this day was treated like a normal school day.
Another reason for the cancellation of schools in cases like this is personal hygiene where students don’t know how to act when it rains. Students jumping into the bodies of water causing others to get wet from the splashing, to the puddles and rivers that were created all having brownish tints to them making campus even less appealing to have students on it. Senior Diego Martinez noted “ I saw a kid take off his shoes and socks to walk through one of the rivers, what even is the point of that other than wanting to get infected by a parasite,”. Martinez added “ The smell by the second half of school became more and more deadly because we’d be sitting next to a kid who would swim through the ponds and mud throughout the day,”.
The first day of school was postponed due to a hurricane warning, which had only been a light drizzle on the day of, so if we are to take the warnings of those seriously we should take all warnings to the same degree so that campus is able to accessible and for all to be comfortable with being on campus.
