SALEM — Three years after flooding sent sewage into classrooms and ravaged the foothill town of Vernonia, Gov. Ted Kulongoski led a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday for a new school and community center.

Students have been attending class in partially damaged buildings and portable classrooms since 2007, when up to a foot of rain caused floodwaters from two streams to rise in a matter of hours, damaging 340 homes, temporarily closing businesses and cutting off roads with damage and debris.

The new school will house kindergartners through high school seniors, the latest step toward rebuilding a Coast Range foothills community repeatedly ravaged by floods.

It will be built northeast of the existing schools at an elevation 50 feet higher, but “hopefully we will never need all 50 feet,” city administrator Bill Haack told The Associated Press.

500-year flood

Vernonia is an old timber town that has been struck by devastating floods in 11 years. The first, in 1996, was called a 500-year flood.

Once the new school is finished, likely in 2013, the old buildings will be demolished. Plans call for the land to be raised and used for permanent open space in the town located 45 miles northwest of Portland.

About 600 of the town’s 2,370 residents are students, so the school is an especially important part of Vernonia, Haack said.

“Everything social happens at the school,” he said.

The school will include a center to study sustainability in rural areas, including renewable biomass energy.

A quality school is key to keeping residents in town and encouraging newcomers to make the move, said Tony Hyde, a Columbia County commissioner who lives in Vernonia.

“It makes the difference between Vernonia living or dying,” Hyde said.

The $38 million school is being funded through a $13.6 million bond, private fundraising and a likely payout from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Kulongoski also announced the state will pay $3.8 million to improve a highway and two other streets near the new school.

“The citizens of Oregon have never left the residents of Vernonia behind,” Kulongoski said. “Today’s investment is the next step in helping rebuild this community.”