Pine Island Elementary School reopened quickly after Ian

After the hurricane, many were not sure when they would be able to get back to the classroom. Pine Island Elementary School was one that people were concerned about because of the debris surrounding it, but to a lot of people’s surprise, they recovered quickly.

When the faculty, students, and staff of Pine Island Elementary first tried to check on their school after Hurricane Ian, there was too much damage and debris to get to it.

“Our next thought was, how’s this little school out here? We took our truck, had to climb through some debris, looked at the school, and we were just in awe. We called Dr. Millins, our principal, right away and said, ‘you will not believe this our school looks amazing.’ I think angels were surrounding it,” said Mendy Nelson, a reading coach at Pine Island Elementary.

Only three weeks after the hurricane, the students of Pine Island Elementary could get a sense of normalcy.

“I was just really excited at the reunion to see all my friends and to just see how strong the school and Pine Island is,” said Georgia, a student at Pine Island Elementary.

“It’s so crazy. When I first got on the island, I was, I can’t even say a word. First day I went to school, I went to my friends, give them a big hug, all the staff,” said Kai, another student at Pine Island Elementary.

“It was just a whole community effort. And I would say maybe five or six days, we had finally located the last student. We literally had staff members who were here on the island knocking on doors, asking neighbors, have you spotted the students. So the day that we found that last student, we were like, amazed, so and then our school is, you know, on a good day, on a regular rainy day, our school floods, so to talk to Mrs. Nelson, and to find out that our school was still standing and had little to no damage,” said Regnia Notariani, a school resource teacher at Pine Island Elementary.

It will only get better from here for the strong-willed people of Pine Island, including mom of three Seri Montalbano.

“For myself, I do have some struggles just even driving from my house to school because there’s a lot to take in. You can’t help but see all the destruction and damage. But we’re working through it. We’re already on the other side of it, and we’ll get through it,” Montalbano said.