LUMBERTON, NC (WBTW) – The Public Schools of Robeson County suffered major damage to its office after Hurricane Matthew now they are short on the number of vehicles kept there.
The Robeson County School Board is looking for funds to replace the 96 vehicles that were damaged by the flood after Hurricane Matthew.
During a school board meeting Tuesday night FEMA reimbursed the county $113,000 to replace vehicles.
School board officials say since the flood the county also received a very small amount of insurance money but say the money is not enough to replace all of the vehicles there.
School board member Craig Lowry says many of the vehicles that were damaged were older models and new cars.
“Our maintenance staff is doubling up on the some of the vehicles that were not lost during the storm and going out to the various schools and some maintenance staff are driving their own personal vehicles,” said Lowry.
The vehicles that were damaged include driver education cars, cars used by maintenance crews and cars used by security.
School board officials say the workload is the same but the travel is not.
“It sometimes does take a little longer because again we don’t have the transportation ability that we had earlier,” Lowry mentioned.
Since the county has little funds to work with used cars and vans are the only option. But Lowry says the challenge is where to find them.
“If we find vehicles with limited mileage and used where they appear to be in good condition and they are checked out we will look at that route,” he added.
School board officials say though the process in purchasing more cars for the district is slow the outreach from the community is not.
“It’s going to be a long way to recovery but we have been appreciative of everything that has been done for the school system by the communities around here from people across the state and actually people from across the United States,” Lowry mentioned.
