LIVINGSTON — Ten years after the 2016 flood, schools in Livingston Parish stand as a reminder of how far the community has come since the waters rose.

The flood hit hard. Around 80% of homes in Livingston Parish flooded, and 16 school sites were damaged.

Students who now walk the halls of those rebuilt schools were just five, six, or seven years old when it happened. For many of them, the memories are still clear.

"Up to my head whenever I was six years old," said Landon Nguyen, "so incredibly scary, especially when it went up to the outlets and all the power went out."

Student Sophia Jordan remembered walking through her flooded elementary school with her mother, a teacher there at the time.

"I just remember it was kind of scary because I was five," Jordan said. "Little five-year-old me was walking through my flooded elementary."

For student Autumn Lloyd, the experience was just as disorienting.

"You're in second grade, you're seven years old," Lloyd said. "You're like, why am I in a canoe in the middle of my street? And then you're going to a new school."

Kelly Jones, who was the principal at Denham Springs High School at the time, said the priority was to keep things as stable as possible for students and families.

"The big effort was just to try to keep everything as normal as we could for those students during the school day and to try to give the families and the students a reason to stay in Denham Springs," Jones said. "And school was a big part of that."

Most schools reopened within 20 days of the flood. Within 108 days, the district built three temporary campuses, each housing 500 students.

Six schools could not return to their original sites. Denham Springs High School relocated to Live Oak High School, where the two campuses shared facilities. Denham Springs freshmen moved to Live Oak Middle, and Denham Springs Elementary students were divided among three other elementary schools.

Three schools, Denham Springs Elementary, Southside Elementary and Southside Junior High, were declared substantially damaged by FEMA. That designation meant rebuilding them as they were would have cost more than demolishing and starting over.

Through a FEMA grant, all three were rebuilt. Southside Elementary and Southside Junior High were combined into a single facility, built on higher ground and using more storm-resistant materials.

Joe Murphy, who served as assistant superintendent of Livingston Parish Public Schools in 2016 and was appointed to oversee the reconstruction of flooded schools, said the physical rebuilding was only part of the story.

"All that was necessary, all that was important, but it was not the most important thing," Murphy said. "What we realized was the 2016 flood was never about buildings. It was always about people."

"It's not the buildings, it's not the parking lots, it's not all that," Murphy said. "We had to do all that, but really it was about providing something for our people."

Jones, who has since moved on to serve as human resources supervisor for Livingston Parish Public Schools, reflected on what it means to see the school still standing.

"It's always great to come back here and see that it rose above the floodwaters and it's stronger than ever," Jones said.

For the students who lived through it and now attend those rebuilt schools, the progress is not lost on them.

"It's so crazy to see everything that we've done as a community to come together and rebuild our community," said student Leila Shade.

Lloyd said being part of that story means something to her.

"It's a great part to be in that legacy," Lloyd said.