After persistent flooding, Tennessee’s governor wants to relocate 14 schools from floodplains

Tennessee lawmakers will soon take up a recommendation from Gov. Bill Lee to put $200 million toward relocating 14 schools out of floodplains.

The school buildings would dot the map from Memphis to the eastern part of the state.

That means thousands of kids, including in the Sumner, Smith and Williamson County school districts, would be moved into newly built classrooms in neighborhoods with a lower risk of flooding.

“Our state is committed to ensuring our students are able to learn in safe and modern school buildings and classrooms,” said state education department Chief Operating Officer Shannon Gordon in a press release. “We want to minimize the impact of future flooding on our school buildings to keep our students and educators safe and focused on learning and accelerating achievement.”

Gov. Lee’s proposal comes after floodwater severely damaged two schools in Waverly last August.

“The tragedy and the heartache and the loss was hard to take in. I walked into the elementary school where water rose to a level of almost four feet within 10 minutes of that flood,” Gov. Lee said during his State of the State address on Monday night.

“I saw desks and backpacks and books piled up against the door where the water rushed out. If the Waverly flood had happened on Friday instead of Saturday, we would be mourning the loss of hundreds of Tennessee children.”

After the Waverly flood, local officials began discussing a separate plan to relocate the town’s flood-damaged schools in order to mitigate future flooding.

The flood sparked a coalition of local leaders, Flood Ready Tennessee, to ask state officials to do more to address widespread flooding issues. The team of county mayors, emergency mangers and homeowners also requested that lawmakers establish a revolving loan fund for flood mitigation projects.

In a statement, the coalition welcomed the governor’s proposal as a first step toward addressing the state’s larger flooding issue.

Tennesseans have faced more than 2,800 floods in the past two decades. They’ve led to billions of dollars in property damage and economic losses.

The funding request to relocate schools is part of a more than $50 billion state budget proposal for the forthcoming fiscal year. The Tennessee General Assembly has to approve the governor’s proposal and will get the final say over state spending.