Damage to Echo Road is shown during a tour of flood damage on Mount Charleston Friday, Aug. 25, 2023. Areas of Mount Charleston suffered significant flood damage caused by Tropical Storm Hilary.
Monday, May 13, 2024 | 6:58 p.m.
Clark County School District is seeking to permanently close a Mount Charleston elementary school because of the extensive damage suffered during last year’s Tropical Storm Hilary.
Interim Superintendent Brenda Larsen-Mitchell notified families of Earl B. Lundy Elementary School students this month that district officials recommend closing the tiny campus in the mountain village of Old Town because of the expense of rebuilding the school after the August storm.
“We recognize and understand the impact this decision will have on our students, families, staff and community of Earl B. Lundy Elementary School,” Larsen-Mitchell wrote in a letter Friday.
The closure recommendation will go before the school board in June.
Lundy enrolled between 11 and 13 students in kindergarten through fifth grade last school year, according to district enrollment records.
Tropical Storm Hilary, the first tropical storm to hit the mainland United States in more than 80 years, was the remnant of a powerful Category 4 hurricane that rolled over Mexico's west coast and Baja California before dissipating as it approached Southern California. Hilary dumped rain on the urban and suburban areas around Las Vegas but slammed the mountains west of the city harder: The National Weather Service said the upper Spring Mountain range received about 6 to 10 inches of rainfall, while lower elevations, such as Mount Charleston, received about 2 to 4 inches. In addition to damaging buildings like Lundy, roaring flash floods destroyed roads and trails and knocked out other critical infrastructure along Mount Charleston.
The district recommends continuing to send Lundy students to Indian Springs Elementary School, about 40 miles away from Lundy’s Yellow Pine Road campus. Displaced Lundy students had already been redirected to Indian Springs this year, and had long gone on to the Indian Springs school complex for middle and high school.
