Winnequah band room flood

Tuesday, April 29, the Wisconsin State Journal ran an article about a natural spring in Monona that has been dry for deacdes that recently began flowing again. Winnequah Middle School has it's own "spring" and it is located in the band room. (In fact Mr. K. nicknamed the band room "Lake Spitvalve.")

While the band room hasn't flooded during the 15 years I've been teaching here, the record-setting snowfall this winter and the heavy April rains raised the water table to what seems to be a new high. The week of April 21 a little water began seeping into one of the stairwells that lead down to the band room. A few days later it seemed to dry up, but after the heavy rains that Friday more water began to come in, and by Monday morning water covered the floor of the entire band room.

Since we couldn't have classes in the band room, we've been to several other rooms in the school this past week. This photo shows Ms. Tam, our student teacher, working with the 6th-graders in the orchestra room. For a week we held 6th-grade band during A&E at the end of the day in order to have a room to rehearse in.

Most days this week the 6th- and 8th-grade bands relocated to the Orchestra room, but on Thursday we had an early dismissal day and due to the alternate schedule the Orchestra room wasn't available, so we got to meet in the cafeteria instead.

The 7th-grade band met in the choir room for several days.

All of the band students deserve lots of credit for their flexibility and focus this week throughout the various changing rehearsal locations!

Our custodians have been battling the water all week long, and have been doing a great job of getting it out as soon as it seeps in. On Friday, the decision was made to remove the risers in the band room due to the water underneath. We thought that it might be the fastest way to get back in the band room once the water stopped coming in.

The custodians worked all day and into the evening to remove the risers, which was a really tough job. Mr. K helped out once or twice with the sledgehammer too...

On Monday the next step was to remove all of the instrument storage shelving.

Once that had been accopmlished, there was nothing left in the band room and it was ready to dry out once the water stopped coming in. Fortunately, on Tuesday that was the case. We were relieved to finally be able to get back into the band room and have our own space back!