Many students in Elizabeth Public Schools are returning to classrooms Tuesday after the community was hit hard by Ida.

The storm caused an estimated $17 million in damage to the district’s school buildings.

The Thomas Dunn Sports Center by Elizabeth High School has been nicknamed a mini “Port Authority” at the start of this school year— it's where all the buses for the estimated 400 displaced students at hotels will be bused to before being bused to their respective schools starting Tuesday.

School 27 and school 26 will be the only two schools in the district that will return fully remote as they still deal with damages. Two weeks after the storm, water was still being pumped out of school 26 on Monday.

Pat Politano, a spokesman for the district, gives credit to the maintenance and custodial staff for the nonstop work they've been doing to even let there be an in-person school year for the other 15 schools.

"We feel for these 2,000 children that are going to continue to suffer this hardship, but we're going to try the best that we can,” Politano says.

The district says it could be months before schools 26 and 27 would be ready to open.