Flooding put this Juneau child care center out of commission. Community support helped it reopen.

Carolina Sekona spent nan play scrambling to group up a caller time attraction successful nan vacant Floyd Dryden Middle School. (Anna Canny/KTOO)

On Tuesday, Issac Benson crouched down to thief his two-year-old boy Silas return disconnected mini purple rainfall boots. Then he scooped Silas up and carried him done nan doorway of a schoolroom astatine Juneau’s erstwhile Floyd Dryden Middle School.

“I’m back,” Silas Benson said, arsenic he entered a room afloat of different toddlers. But he seemed awkward and confused arsenic he looked around. Silas has been coming to this time attraction since he was conscionable a baby, but nan room, pinch its soft rugs and bins of toys, was unfamiliar.

“Let’s easiness our measurement backmost in, it’s okay,” Issac Benson said. “I cognize it’s a large modulation and change, isn’t it?”

The Bensons’ regular time care, Glacier Valley Kids, flooded during last week’s record-breaking glacial outburst. Flood waters roseate up to their location too.

“We stayed up each nighttime and watched it happen, and luckily we were conscionable precocious capable to not get wholly inundated,” Issac Benson said. “It was still really scary.”

Their car shed and crawlspace took connected water. The family spent nan week drying things retired and helping their neighbors who were worse off, each while juggling different responsibilities. Issac Benson said it was bully to walk clip pinch Silas astatine home, but seeing nan Glacier Valley Kids unit connected Tuesday greeting was a relief.

“My woman and I were trying to still activity full-time and full-time genitor and I mean, those things are incongruent, right?” he said. “Without time care, without them, our lives don’t really function.”

Silas Benson eats meal astatine a integrative table, which was salavaged aft past week’s record-breaking glaical outburst flood. (Anna Canny/KTOO)

The opening time of this emergency kid attraction halfway marks immoderate return to normalcy for Benson and nan different parents. It’s a large time for kid attraction supplier Carolina Sekona too. She’s been moving Glacier Valley Kids, a authorities licensed time attraction for children nether 5 years old, retired of her location connected Emily Way for years.

Last week, much than 2 feet of h2o surged successful and soaked wooden furniture, blankets, rugs, toys and stuffed animals. At slightest half of nan worldly had to beryllium thrown away, and it was clear that nan location itself was uninhabitable. 

“I was crying, I didn’t cognize what was going on, I didn’t cognize what we were going to do,” Sekona said. “All I could spot was my location destroyed, and my kid attraction destroyed. And I knew it was going to beryllium months earlier that could beryllium built backmost up.”

It looked for illustration Glacier Valley Kids was going to beryllium retired of commission. That wasn’t an option, said Blue Shibler, nan executive head of The Southeast Alaska Association for nan Education of Young Children, a nonprofit focused connected supporting early puerility caregivers and educators. 

“In general, we can’t spend to suffer immoderate kid attraction spaces. There aren’t immoderate unfastened spaces successful kid attraction programs,” she said.

Parents that trust connected Sekona person obscurity other to go. Child attraction successful Juneau is stretched bladed nether normal circumstances, and moreover earlier nan flood Sekona was turning parents away. She cares for 12 Juneau children, and she had astatine slightest 12 much families connected her waitlist. 

“If she wasn’t capable to reopen, that would beryllium 12 families that had to time off nan workforce,” Shibler said. “That’s each location is to it.”

Alison Diaz plays pinch babe dolls and a woody room playset astatine nan caller emergency childcare halfway astatine Floyd Dryden Middle School. Many toys were thrown distant aft they were soaked by floodwaters. (Anna Canny/KTOO)

So Shibler’s agency sounded successful immoderate emergency money to switch nan toys and different supplies. Sekona picked retired a caller plush campfire and a miniature woody room playset, among different things. Other time cares and schools astir municipality donated cubbies, bookshelves, books and spare toys. 

And nan City and Borough of Juneau offered up nan erstwhile Floyd Dryden Middle School building, which served arsenic an emergency shelter for group who evacuated their flooded homes conscionable past week. Then Alaska Department of Health and Social Services issued Sekona a impermanent licence to group up shop there. 

Skye Taverez plays pinch blocks adjacent to a plush campfire. Many of nan plush items, including pillows, rugs and stuffed animals, had to beryllium thrown distant aft nan flood. (Anna Canny/KTOO)

She was grateful that it each came together truthful quickly. 

“I request to beryllium backmost astatine work. I person a family to support,” Sekona said.

Sekona is simply a azygous mom of four. Luckily, she moved her family into a caller location this summer, 1 that wasn’t touched by rising water. But nan location that flooded supported Sekona’s livelihood, and that of nan 3 group she employs. 

Over nan weekend, they transformed 2 of nan school’s quiet classrooms. One is for mealtime and play. The different is for movies and naptime. Ever since nan schoolhouse building was vacated this spring, the metropolis has been eyeing it for kid care, so Glacier Valley Kids will beryllium a proceedings run.

From 1 broadside of nan room, Sekona watched nan kids arsenic they explored and rediscovered immoderate of nan acquainted things that she was capable to salvage.

A fewer favourite toys were spared by precocious shelves. The integrative tables and chairs that were designed to withstand toddlers held up beautiful good against flood waters too. And connected 1 wall, there’s a coating of a smiling lion pinch a rainbow mane. Sekona stopped by her gutted location connected Emily Way to retrieve it.  

“The kids are truthful visual,” Sekona said. “They’ll spot it. They’ll remember: this is us.”