DUBLIN, Ga. — Dublin City Schools are back in session after Hurricane Helene.
Students returned to school on Wednesday after the school closed their doors from Friday to Tuesday due to storm damage.
Junior Aylin Delgado said she's happy to be back.
"It feels relieving. It is something that I'm used it too," Delgado says. "It was kind of hard during the hurricane, having no power and not seeing my friends."
Delgado says she thought Helene would mean just a single day out of school. She says waking up Friday morning she was shocked.
"We had a big tree cover in my road. The power lines were down all around the street. It was bad," she says.
Principal Michael Overstreet is glad to have students back. He says he has been at the school since Saturday.
Because the school had power and so much of the community did not, a staff member suggested opening the building for the public to help members of the community.
"It was a great idea to open up our building to allow the community to come in and just charge up their electronic devices, take a shower. We had staff members come in and do some laundry," he said.
One of the people who were without power was Delgado. Without power, she said that she completed a 500-piece puzzle.
But at her family's restaurant, they did have an opportunity to give back. They helped feed power crews and front-line workers helping get the community back to normal.
"We just wanted to give back because they've been doing so much. We had a lot of linemen go there and we gave them food," she says.
Now that Delgado has power, she says she is over the moon.
"It feels good I could take a warm shower. I wasn't feeling all cold and stuff and then, we get to come back and it's just normal again. It's better instead of not having anything," she says.
Now students are back, Principal Overstreet says he is ready for them to enjoy normalcy.
"It's about celebration of our homecoming activities, engaging our students, loving on them, showing some compassion and empathy for what they've gone through. I couldn't think of, cannot think of a better time," he says.
Overstreet says he is ready to get his students back to high achievement and success.