Schools reopen with only minor bumps; mail delivery gets the OK

Staff Report
Life began to look more like normal in east St. Mary on Tuesday, when students returned to school and gasoline became more available.
But Tri-City area residents didn’t have to go far to find people still struggling with power outages and home damage.
St. Mary public schools reopened Tuesday for the first time since Hurricane Ida, with slight disruptions resulting from a water line break in Berwick and sporadic phone service, Superintendent Dr. Theresa Bagwell said.
“Fortunately, there are no impediments to keeping students in school and staff have been able to use alternatives to maintain any services that have been disrupted in any way,” Bagwell said in an email.
A water main break on Berwick’s Watson Street on Monday prompted a boil water advisory, a routine step when water pressure drops. Repairs were underway Tuesday.
Slight disruptions resulted from a need to provide water for cooking and drinking at schools in Berwick affected by the boil advisory, Bagwell said.
Cell and landline phone service has been subject to interruptions since last week.
“Although the school system will host a two-day enrollment event for students impacted by the hurricane, some parents have visited area schools this morning seeking to enroll. School administrators and office staff have been able to provide them with the information needed to enter school,” Bagwell wrote, “and we anticipate further assisting these families tomorrow and Thursday at the Materiel and Operations Center in Morgan City from 12:00-3:00 p.m.”
Central Catholic students also returned to class Tuesday.
In Assumption, where about 40% of utility customers were without power Tuesday, the School Board announced plans to resume classes Friday.
The news drew some angry responses on the Assumption Parish Facebook page, where the news from the School Board was posted.
“Idk how assumption parish expects kids to return to school when they r still without power,” said one poster. “That’s not even right n fair. N then on a Friday.”
“It’s not like we haven’t had a major hurricane a week ago and people are still without power,” another said. “So we just gonna send our kids to school with dirty clothes? Remember this when it’s time to vote again.”
In St. Mary, gasoline is an easier purchase than it was last week, but there were lines at some stations Tuesday.
Five refineries in Louisiana remained shut Tuesday, accounting for about 1.0 million barrels a day of refinery capacity, or approximately 6% of the total U.S. operable refining capacity, the Department of Energy said.
All three refineries in the Baton Rouge area and one near New Orleans (1.3 million barrels a day of refinery capacity) have initiated the restart process, although the refiners will not produce at full rates for several days, the department said.
Refinery operations cannot restart until feedstock supply, power and other essential third-party utilities are restored, the department said.
Fuel stocks in the area are being drawn down from storage while refineries and offshore production are restored.
The department reported that 465,000 customers, or about a quarter of the customers in the state, remained without power as of Tuesday morning.
By 8 p.m., the poweroutage.us website was reporting 392,000 blacked-out customers.
No outages were reported in St. Mary and only 79 in St. Martin.
But in Assumption, more than 4,300 of about 10,000 customers were without electricity.
Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes remain almost completely without consumer power.
Closer to home, people with ZIP codes starting with 703 moved a step closer to normal mail delivery.
Effective Tuesday, almost all post offices beginning with ZIP codes 700, 701, 703, and 704 resumed retail services and delivery, where it is safe to do so, the United States Postal Service said in a press release.
The Postal Service will continue to monitor conditions and is working to restore service as soon as it is safe to do so, the service said in a press release.
“We apologize for any inconvenience customers may experience and appreciate their patience. Updates will be provided as soon as they are available. Customers can check here for further information: https://about.usps.com/newsroom/service-alerts/.”