FEMA plans to help fix damages after tornado hits Columbus School

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – In February 2019 a tornado came through Columbus. It destroyed homes and buildings along 20th street North and left the former Hunt School with substantial damage.

The Columbus Municipal School District is working with FEMA to find ways to pay for the repairs.

Years ago Hunt Intermediate School was a place for kids to learn.

But when a tornado nearly destroyed the building on February 20-19 the Columbus Municipal School District had to find a new place for those students.

Now the District is working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to rebuild and renew the campus.

Superintendent Doctor Cherie Labat says now she plans to watch the building grow into something bigger and better.

“The Hunt facility will be a catalyst for workforce economic and community development for the Columbus community and it will be the epitome of wrap-around services to meet the needs of this great community,” said Dr. Labat.

The cost to fix the school is estimated to be nearly 14 million dollars and FEMA has agreed to help give the School District the money to repair the Damages.

And after years of work and planning, Dr. Labat says she has a vision of what the new building will be.

“We’ve developed it to be a 6th-grade academy and part of the facility so we’ve planned in detail since 2019, in preparation of moving the students so we have classrooms and we know how many math classes there will be and we’ve made sure we’ve scoped the architectural needs to meet the students,” said Dr. Labat.

But students won’t be the only ones to benefit from a revitalized Hunt School.

“The amazing thing about this project is that I think this will be a game changer for the community. It will be a place where a community member can come and learn a skill to get into the workforce and build relationships with local businesses in the community in order to upscale them into the workforce and we are providing that service to parents as well as exposing our students to workforce development and we feel like this will be a catalyst to changing the community,” said Dr. Labat.

Dr. Labat says she hopes to be able to move forward in the next 2 to 3 months.