Classes relocating in tornado's wake - Arkansas Democrat Gazette
As many as 465 students in the Mena School District will have to attend school in either a local church or a school building 12 miles away in Hatfield after Thursday's tornado destroyed the district's middle school.
The tornado, which killed three people, damaged Mena Middle School so severely that it will have to be condemned, school officials and Polk County Judge Ray B. Stanley said Monday.
Also Monday, Gov. Mike Beebe declared Ashley and Miller counties state disaster areas. On Friday, he declared Polk, Howard and Sevier counties as disaster areas.
The two tornadoes in Polk County, including the one that crippled Mena, damaged or destroyed up to 1,000 homes.
In Mena, as many as 300 seventh- and eighth-graders will attend classes at an old middle school in Hatfield, and about 165 sixth-graders will go to Dallas Avenue Baptist Church for the remaining six weeks of the school year, said Debra Parnell, administrative assistant to the superintendent.
School officials said classes are expected to resume this week.
Arkansas Democrat GazetteClasses relocating in tornado's wakeHe said the 44-year-old plant produces motors for wastewater treatment, offshore oil rigs and irrigation pumps, and for industrial applications. "Our goal is to get back up and running as soon as we can," Polzin said. Stanley, the county judge,