AUSTELL, GA (CBS ATLANTA) -
As students headed back to class in Fulton, Cobb, DeKalb, Clayton and Fayette counties on Monday, the faculty and students at one Austell school have a special reason to celebrate.
Clarkdale Elementary School in Austell was destroyed in the historic flood of 2009.
Manuel Melon has vivid memories of that September day when rising flood waters forced students to evacuate.
"It was a kind of current," said Melon, who's now in the fifth grade. "When we were running to the buses, people were trying to move their legs through the water but they couldn't. Kids were crying and everything. They lost their supplies. I lost my glasses."
"It was very sad to have your students displaced," said parent Judy Smith. "Kids, they think of school as a second home."
For nearly three years, the student body was split between two other schools.
Cobb County school leaders eventually tore down the old building and built a new one 1.5 miles away next to the campus of Cooper Middle School. It's a $16.6 million facility that houses 700 students.
Marjorie Bickerstaff, the long-time principal of Clarkdale Elementary School, said, "The schools that housed us were extremely pleasant, but when this school started coming up, we have all been visiting every day."
"It's very exciting," said Manuel. "The day I came, I'm like, ‘Mommy, do you have some kind of remote that you can make the days hurry up?'"
"Emotions are our gatekeeper to learning," said Bickerstaff. "They won't forget, and none of us will ever forget that day."
She said she and her students all learned an important lesson from the flood.
"Out of difficulties come miracles, and here is one," she said.
Copyright 2012 WGCL-TV (Meredith Corporation). All rights reserved.
Source: Cobb County Schools
