Fountain Inn Elementary School will reopen Tuesday after bat removal specialists checked all areas of the school and determined that hundreds of bats that had plagued the school for weeks and forced it release students early last Thursday and close Friday have since left the building.
School district maintenance personnel and an animal removal company checked all areas of the school multiple times and peered into interior walls and above ceiling tiles and have not seen any bats since Friday, according to a school announcement sent out by Principal Glen Wile.
Crews found a major colony of about 400 bats that was located inside the exterior walls of the gymnasium. A second group of 11 bats was found inside an exterior wall on the other side of the building, he said.
Wile said that “all areas of the school have been checked multiple times for bats. No bats have been found in the school — in classrooms, above ceiling tiles, or inside walls.”
The school installed valves in exterior walls that allowed the roosting bats to fly out but not return, he said. Crews sealed other access points into the building and installed screens over exhaust fans in the school gymnasium where the bats were first seen more than three weeks ago, he said.
The school was thoroughly disinfected and bat droppings were cleaned from the roof, he said. No droppings were found inside the school itself, but only on the roof and inside walls, he said.
“This evidence supports our belief that only a few bats were in occupied areas and only for a short time,” Wile said.
Crews removed droppings from the roof and disinfected all areas.Droppings were left inside the walls and Wile said they were assured those droppings were contained and of no danger.
Parents were to be notified through electronic telephone calls and a posting on the school's website, said Oby Lyles, school district spokesman.
Source: Greenville Online
