Alpine Autism Center braces for more storms

Crews at the Alpine Autism Center continue cleaning the flood-damaged building as they brace for more storms Monday night.

The school was clobbered by a wall of mud last week. Everything below 4 feet had to be gutted. Nearly all supplies inside were ruined.

And students are still recovering from the emotional trauma of being stuck inside during the flood.

“My son has had trouble sleeping since then,” Michelle Linn, a mother at the school, said.

Her son is one of 31 students trying to cope with moving buildings after the Alpine Center was damaged. She said it’s an extra challenge because the students are all autistic.

“Everyone has their own way of expressing their feelings; unfortunately, for people with Autism, they don’t express it well so we’ll see latent behaviors from this for months,” Linn said.

The flood and move hasn’t just been hard on the students — it’s been hard on teachers, too.

“The teachers were trying to comfort the children which was stressful, and many of them lost their cars,” Kimberly Trujillo said.

Trujillo is the Director of Operations at the center. She said repairs are expected to take at least two months.

“Maybe the time will help heal the way they feel, because some of them are scared to even come back if it floods again,” Trujillo said.

Trujillo is worried Monday’s storms will take out the few things that are left in the center.

“I hope the city lets us build a wall or something to prevent this from happening, because we can’t go through this again,” she said.

The city said they unclogged the drainage pipe in the debris basin, so the center should not be hit again like it was last Monday.

The school will have to move out of its temporary location on Friday. It is still looking for another place to go.