Inclement Weather Update: Jan. 9, 2025
Dear Families, Faculty, and Staff,
Our team continues to evaluate the impact of both the winter storm and the water service issues that have faced Hanover County this week. As we shared with you yesterday,
please be assured that our team is working diligently to reopen our schools as quickly and safely as possible, and we take this responsibility seriously.
Hanover County Water
We are grateful for our valued partners with Hanover County Government and their continued work to restore water service to our schools and broader community. As County leaders
shared this morning, water service has been restored to areas of Hanover County east of I-95.
While service has returned, the boil water advisory remains in effect.
As we have shared with you previously, the vast majority of our schools utilize Hanover County water service (17 of 24), meaning this week’s outage and the continued boil water advisory significantly affects our operations since we rely upon this water to provide students and staff with safe food service, safe drinking water, access to restrooms, and more.
Our team has worked diligently this week to develop plans to both feed our students and provide students with ample bottled water, among other things, in order to reopen our schools during the boil water advisory. While we have been able to secure a limited supply of bottled water for the 17 impacted schools and are awaiting these deliveries, the demand for bottled water in our region has been unprecedented given the water issues impacting the area, meaning we cannot provide every student with ample access to clean drinking water in our schools on Friday.
In short, while water service has returned, it continues to impact our operations and ability to safely open our schools.
Travel Conditions
Additionally, there remain some uncleared and/or slick secondary roads throughout the county, primarily in the far eastern and western portions of the county, such as Beaverdam, Rockville, Montpelier, Black Creek, and Old Church. Several examples of these road conditions documented by our Transportation Department today can be found in
this folder. While we expect some progress to be made today, temperatures are once again forecasted to be in the teens tonight, limiting the improvement to these roadways.
These secondary roads remain unsafe for our buses, student drivers, and staff.
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As a result of both of these factors, HCPS will be CLOSED on Friday, January 10. Employees use Code 3. All 12-month employees report to work on a regular schedule.
We understand this is disruptive and sincerely appreciate your patience as we work to make the best possible decisions for our students and staff. We hope that sharing this information well in advance is helpful to you as you begin to make the necessary arrangements.
Please note that
a communication is forthcoming regarding the impact of both today’s and tomorrow’s closures on the 2024-25 school calendar. Please stay tuned.
As always, we appreciate your support. Thank you.
Stay safe and warm,
Hanover County Public Schools