One building at Beggs Middle School will NOT be used for the rest of the year

By: Stef Manchen

Days after a tornado damaged Beggs Middle School, school leaders now say that at least one of the school buildings will not be used for the rest of the year.

“I’m just really in utter shock," said fifth grader Ronald Floyd. "I don’t really know what to think. It’s just crazy that that all happened in one night.”

FULL VIDEO: Beggs Middle School tornado on surveillance video

His building, and his favorite classroom, were hardest hit and won't reopen when he returns to school on March 23.

2 News Oklahoma got surveillance video from the middle school campus that shows the storm moving into the area:

Floyd said he saw photos of one of his classrooms in the coverage of the destruction.

“It was Miss King’s ELA," he said. "She’s one of my favorite teachers, so it was really heartbreaking to see her class just gone.”

His mom, Tiffany, got emotional talking about the devastation her community has suffered.

“It’s devastating because I mean we are such a tight knit community and everyone is like family so seeing the pictures, seeing the school, seeing all the damage is just terrible," said Tiffany. "Knowing that all these people put so much love and energy into teaching our kids and then watching it just get blown away in one night, it's crazy.”

Middle school principal Brandon Bookout said after thorough inspections, they made the tough call to not reopen the fifth and sixth grade building. Safety, he said, is their main priority.

"What their finding is the water kind of got up underneath the flood and caused a little but more damage than we initially thought," said Bookout. "I know people are seeing pictures online thinking oh the roof is just off. well, there’s a lot that goes into that. Especially with the rain that came after the tornado, that’s caused some damage.”

Their seventh and eighth grade building directly behind it, he said, should be repaired and ready to welcome kids back after spring break.

Bookout said the plan is evolving, but they're evaluating where their nearly 170 fifth and sixth graders can finish out their school year.

“What we’ve done is we’ve looked at age appropriateness for where we want our students and so we do have spaces in other buildings that would be age appropriate for those students to be in, hallways for them to be isolated to where they can still move around classes and have a normal middle school day," he said.

He expressed appreciation for his community, who he said have rallied behind the school district as they have assessed the damage and a plan forward.

Young Floyd said he's ready and willing to do whatever he can to get back to school as soon as possible.

“I hope that once they pick up all the power lines, we can go help or something,” he said.

School leaders posted an update on the situation to the district Facebook page:

"Demon Nation, we would like to give you an update and some footage of damage. We found out yesterday that our softball field and baseball field are totaled and will have to be replaced.

All of our route buses but one are inoperable. Our SUVs and activity buses survived. The bus barn and shop are decimated. The middle school dome has taken damage but we believe we can have it repaired and reopened soon.

The middle school will be unused the rest of this school year. The north end of the building is extremely tore up including the red iron is bent and unsafe. The tornado pulled the gas line out of the ground and has to be replaced. It tore our electrical system up but that is being restored as we speak. It has also messed up our fiber lines for the network systems.

The admin team has a plan and that plan will be given to the middle school parents at the scheduled back to school meeting. We are not giving the plan out now because things are still fluid at this moment and details could change. We would like to give out accurate information.

Please know the students will not be back in the middle school building this year but will be on campus in class. The students safety and education are our number one priority. Thank you for all your support and patience while we continue to work on all of this. Please remember the buildings are unsafe and the clean up is still happening so please for your safety stay off of campus and follow the procedures and plans that are being set up by the administration team. Once again thank you and it’s a great day to be a Golden Demon."

2 News Oklahoma's Emma Burch went inside the school:

Green Country schools hit by weekend storms, now districts are deciding what's next

Two people died when a tornado struck Beggs on March 6th.