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May 19, 2006
ANDOVER — The record rainfalls of the last week closed roads and schools and flooded basements and low-lying areas throughout Massachusetts and New Hampshire but left Phillips Academy largely unscathed.
The rains, which started in earnest on Saturday, May 13 and continued through Tuesday, May 16, dumped more than 10 inches of rain on many communities, forcing public schools in Andover and surrounding towns to close school for one or more days. One school that was particularly hard hit was St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire, which suffered such severe flooding that it was forced to evacuate all students and end the school year two weeks early.
According to PA Director of Facilities Michael Williams, Phillips Academy was spared such hardships in part because of its fortunate location at the top of a hill with good drainage. In addition, he said, “Over the past few years we have invested in water control systems and pumps. In 1996, we had a similar heavy storm and had a fairly large number of building flooding issues. We have worked to correct these problems. With the recent pattern of heavy storms nationally, we also upgraded our emergency response equipment for just this sort of event. In short, we were ready and went to work using our normal call-in procedures.”
Williams said PA suffered some minor basement flooding and some flooded steam lines and utility vaults, but nothing that impaired the operation of the school.
“The grass may not be perfect for graduation and we have some damp areas to dry,” he said, “but in general we came out of this in good shape.”
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