UPDATE – All Frenchtown Schools Closed Monday After Major Water Main Break [YouTube]

UPDATE 8:00 p.m. Sunday, December 13

Frenchtown Schools K-12 will be closed on Monday, and perhaps much longer,after a major water main break flooded the high school and caused extensive damage.

Superintendent Randy Cline told KGVO News that the break occurred early Sunday morning.

"We had a water main break that runs our heating system," Cline said. "The water's pumped in from the outside, called a ground source heat pump system. It happened sometime Saturday night or early Sunday morning. There's a lot of damage, because the water pumps at 1,200 gallons a minute. It completely separated and all the water was pouring into the building."

Cline said a local restoration company will be handling the cleanup.

"Dayspring Restoration has taken over the cleaning of the building," he said. "We have to clean up the water and then check the walls to see how far up the damage has gone. We're cancelling school grades K-12 because there are so many systems that are intermingled including the buses and all the activities."

Cline said the damages could be extensive, depending upon how much of the school was affected.

"It could be very expensive, depending on what happens with our gym floors," Cline continued. "Both our gym floors were flooded in the high school and junior high. It looks right now like we may have to replace the floor in the high school gym. One of the things that concerns us most is that our potable water system was flooded, so we don't have any drinking water in the building, and until the water main is replaced we can't pump any water into the building for bathrooms and the like."

Cline said he does not believe that there will be any classes in the high school this week, but will visit with Dayspring on Monday morning before determining what happens for the rest of the week.