GILBERT — The list of flood-destroyed items and materials at Gilbert Elementary just keeps getting longer and longer and a reopening date just keeps getting farther and farther away.

The school suffered severe flooding on May 9 when flash floods washed through the southern portion of Mingo County.

Now, a grand reopening for this year is in serious doubt.

Not only is the school swamped with water and mud inside the building, its gym floor is buckled and will have to be replaced, it’s playground is covered in tons of mud and much of the school’s property will now have to be replaced.

Inside the school looks almost like a post-apocalyptic movie set, complete with darkened hallways, mud puddles throughout the rooms, desks and chairs pulled out into the open areas in no certain order and thick flood mud covering many of the floors.

The list of school property destroyed in the flooding is long and getting longer.

— The gym floor ... destroyed.

—Lockers ... destroyed.

—Desks, tables and chairs ... destroyed.

—Desktop computers ... destroyed.

—$5,000 in brand-new, never-used laptop computers ... destroyed.

—Floors inside the school ... destroyed.

—$70,000 in new playground equipment ... destroyed.

—Gilbert Elementary School sign ... destroyed.

—School electrical boxes ... destroyed.

Mingo County Schools Superintendent Dwight Dials said he doesn’t expect students to be back in the Gilbert schools before the end of the current school year.

Dials said there are so many issues that the school board has to look at, including buses not being able to get to kids because of damaged and destroyed roads and bridges, cleanup of the facilities, the safety of the children and the fact that many children are still needed at home for cleanup of their own flood-damaged houses and property.

“We’re trying to be sensitive to the needs and safety of our students,” Dials said. “We have to weight it all out. And we have to look at how much are we going to accomplish (by going back to school). What’s your participation rate if we do re-enter the schools and how much are we going to get accomplished? Also, I want to keep the buses out of the way of the road repairs. You can’t have a student standing waiting on a bus that’s an hour late because a bus is held up by road work. We have some serious things to deal with. We have a strong desire to do our jobs and to teach and feed kids, but we’re trying to be real sensitive and do the right thing.”

Dials said all of the flooded buildings will have to undergo cleanup and repair and he isn’t sure that is possible with less than 10 school days left. Dials said electrical equipment at Gilbert Elementary School is going to have to be replaced, which will make reopening the grade school that much harder in the few days left on the school calendar.

“We’re heading real fast to the end of the school year,” Dials said. “I wouldn’t expect to be back in Gilbert schools by the end of the year and we may not be back in Burch High School, either. It’s going to be difficult. Some people are traumatized and demoralized. We have teachers who have lost everything. We’ll see how things develop, but I really doubt we’ll be back in some of the schools by the end of this school year.”

Gilbert Elementary Principal Delmer Blankenship said Monday that he doesn’t expect the school to reopen anytime soon.

“I’d say it will take them a few months to get everything cleaned up and back to normal,” Blankenship said as he walked the dark hallways of the school. Lines on the walls show just how high the water rose inside the school — about three and a half feet.

“Both Gilbert Elementary and Gilbert High School probably suffered about $2 million in flood damage,” Blankenship said. “I’ve never seen it this bad. Even in 1972, it only got up to the school’s sidewalk.”

Blankenship was the first person to get to the school when the flooding happened. He said water was high inside the school, but the power was still on.

Blankenship pointed to a water line on the main power boxes inside the electrical room. He said despite all the water and destruction, the power stayed on through it all.

The gymnasium floor is buckled and wavy and students won’t be able to use it again, Blankenship said.

See all this, it will all have to be replaced,” he said.

Blankenship said the Mingo County School Board has insurance on each of the schools, but, as has been the case with past administrations, all that is replaced is the necessities, like chairs and desks.

He said he’d just gotten $5,000 worth of laptop computers for his teachers that had not even been used. All those were locked in a storage room and were destroyed by the flooding. Blankenship said he’s been told that all the electronic equipment he lost will be replaced, but he’s taking a wait-and-see attitude.

“They tell me they will replace all that and I hope they do,” he said.

“This seems like a bad dream that I just can’t wake up from,” Blankenship said.

Gilbert High School teacher Lisa Adkins said the biggest concern at GHS right now is graduation.

“Graduation is still up in the air,” she said. “The kids want it to be held on the football field, but I think there’s some problems with the parking and the trash that’s right down from the field. Man (High School), Matewan and Westside have all offered to let us have graduation in their gyms, but the kids want to have it at Gilbert High School.”

“I don’t blame them,” Blankenship said. “You want to graduate from your home school.”

Reportedly, the Gilbert High School baseball team, which was left without a field after the floods nearly destroyed it, has already forfeited its games in the sectional tournament. Last week, girls softball teams at all Mingo County schools ended their season without playing a game in post-season tournaments.

The Mingo County baseball sectional tournament is scheduled to be played today. The tournament has been changed from double elimination to single elimination. Burch plays Williamson at Matewan High School’s Tiger Stadium baseball field at 2 p.m. today and the winner of that game will play Matewan directly following the conclusion of the first contest.

Williamson-area schools are currently the only schools open in Mingo County. Gilbert Elementary, Gilbert High School, Matewan Elementary, Matewan Middle School and Matewan High School, Burch High and Burch Middle School are all still closed, while Williamson Middle School, Williamson High School and Riverside Elementary School are all currently open.