Empire schools cleaning up debris after Sunday night storm

EMPIRE, Okla. (KSWO) - Officials for Empire Public Schools spent their day picking up the debris left behind by last night’s storm as well.

Winds estimated at 70 to 80 miles per hour came through the area leaving behind tipped over buildings and destroyed roofs.

Superintendent Justin Smith lives near the school and says the storm didn’t stick around for long, but left a path of destruction behind.

“Watching out the window and different things, we saw some of the debris flying. It knocked out one of the windows in our house. It was over in 3 to 4 minutes but the damage was done pretty quickly,” Smith said

Smith says crews have been working on cleaning up the aftermath throughout today. One of their biggest issues was finding the keys to school buses after the building they were housed in was heavily damaged.

“Yea our maintenance building is where we keep our bus keys so that presented a challenge because we had to find those. It houses a lot of our tools and our mowers so we are still assessing the damage to that,” Smith said

Superintendent Smith says he hopes students will be able to come back to campus on Tuesday but says there might be minor inconveniences including no internet in some buildings and certain areas being blocked for safety reasons.

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