'There was definitely a guardian angel watching over us'

The portion of the building where the roof blew off recently had a new roof installed. On Friday morning, crews were removing damaged roofing from the roof while another worker was picking up the roof pieces that had been strewn across the school lawn.

NGS Principal Dustin Morrow said, “To my knowledge, no one in the school received the tornado warning alert for Newport. Some in the school received a severe thunderstorm warning, but not all.”

He said that the incident occurred shortly before 1:30 p.m.

Morrow explained that a roofing company was on site working on replacing the roof for the primary building on Thursday prior to the storm. After the storm damage, the roofing crew went up on top of the damaged roof on the third and fourth grade area to assess the situation.

According to the principal, when the roof blew off, a window was broken out by a piece of guttering that got flipped up from the backside of the school. He said that several classrooms in the third and fourth grade hallways received water damage since the roof wasn’t in place.

“There were five fourth graders who received very minor scrapes and cuts from the glass. Several of our staff jumped into action and began cleaning up the students and checking everyone for injuries,” Morrow said. “One student did have a cut on her nose glued up quickly. There was definitely a guardian angel watching over us.”

Newport City Director of Schools Sandra Burchette said that the school nurse assessed injuries, administered first aid and then contacted the parents.

Hopefully, NGS will be back in session on Tuesday, but that decision will not be made until Monday. Administration reported that the custodial staff worked Thursday night and Friday morning trying to clean up as much water and debris as they safely could.

“We have a clean-up team on site now working to remove ceiling tiles, water and glass,” he added. He said that the contractors are making efforts to dry the building as best as they can and get new materials ordered to replace the section of roof that was destroyed.

According to Morrow, the school’s emergency preparedness planning came into play and showed its effectiveness. He said that students were held in location for about an hour while he along with the director of schools, Cocke County Emergency Managment Agency Director Joe Esway, Cocke County Sheriff’s Department Deputy Ensley, School Resource Officer Sgt. Cassady, and Cocke County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Damron were checking the damage and watching the weather closely to determine when students could be safely dismissed.

Kindergarten was released shortly after 2 p.m. and then a controlled release of all students to their parents occurred at 2:40 p.m.

“I am extremely proud of our staff and students for how they handled themselves during the event,” Morrow said.

“I am very proud of how quickly our staff got our students into shelter,” Burchette said.

The Newport City Board of Education meeting has been changed from Tuesday Jan. 17 to Tuesday, Jan. 24, at 5:30 p.m., because of the storm damage to Newport Grammar School’s campus.

At the Cocke County School Board meeting on Thursday evening, Cocke County Schools Assistant Superintendent Casey Kelley reported that to his knowledge, no county schools had suffered damage during the storm. The county school system stays in contact with the Cocke County Emergency Management Agency (EMA) when serious situations or inclement weather is reported. Kelley said that through this contact, the county school system’s team knew which roads were blocked by trees and debris, so they could determine which bus routes would be affected.

Newport Utilities (NU) Communications and Customer Service Manager Sharon Kyser said that the maximum number of outages in Cocke County at once after the storm was 2,500. NU had crews working to restore outages until 2 a.m., and at that time, crews had worked 20 hours. Kyser explained they were required to take a mandatory break for safety reasons, and that it had gotten so dark it was hard for crews to see in some of the locations.

“These crews were out endangering their lives. They had worked 20 hours, so they needed a short break to ensure their safety,” she explained.

She reported that crews went back out just before 7 a.m. Friday, and at that time, there were 320 customers without power. She said many of those customers were in the more isolated, harder to reach areas. She said one crew was working on English Mountain to restore power to residences as well as critical communications equipment, while the other crews were spread out across the county.

When the tornado warning was issued, Kyser said NU closed the lobby for a few minutes so everyone in the building could take shelter.

In social media posts, local residents were talking about debris being blown into streets by wind gusts. A resident of R.H. Ellis Road in Dandridge reported that a tree limb was blown through the concrete steps at her home, and she posted photos. Residents from Douglas Dam Road in Dandridge reported that a heavy wrought iron patio set was blown out into their yard.

In White Pine, a tornado warning was issued and the town’s tornado sirens were sounded. The sirens can be heard for miles and warns residents within the vicinity to take immediate cover.

Immediately after the storm, Appalachian Electric Cooperative (AEC), which serves Jefferson County and part of Hamblen County, reported that 4,500 residents were without power. Several power poles were downed along Highway 25-E in White Pine near the vicinity of Walters Bridge, which caused the route from White Pine to Newport to be closed for several hours.

Downed trees were reported throughout Newport and Cocke County as well.

With more bad weather forecast on Friday, with possible flooding of the Pigeon River and the chance of snow, both Newport City and Cocke County schools canceled classes.