Lawrence school district facilities employees rip out waterlogged carpet Tuesday in the explorations in technology lab at South Junior High School, 2734 La., after the classroom flooded from overnight rains. From left are Brad Hunt, Gerald Bulleigh, custodial supervisor for the district, Frank Toledo and Mike Case.

Several South Junior High School teachers got a surprise from Monday’s heavy overnight rain: flooded classrooms.

“I’m homeless today,” Jim Nye, explorations in technology teacher, said Tuesday morning.

Nye watched as district workers ripped out soaked carpeting in his classroom, which had just under 2 inches of water on the floor.

“There were trash cans floating next door,” Nye said, referring to an adjacent classroom, used as a computer lab and for journalism and foreign language classes, that also was flooded.

“Fortunately, all the electrical things are up high,” Nye said. “Technology and water don’t mix very well.”

Will Fernandez, principal of the school at 2734 La., agreed.

“If those towers would have hit the water, they could have fried all the computers,” Fernandez said.

The water poured in when runoff from the overnight heavy rain drained from the adjacent construction site for the new South building, pooled at the classroom doors and seeped into the rooms, Fernandez said.

The flooding was discovered about 6:45 a.m. Tuesday by a school janitor. Pumps were brought in and most of the water was removed by midmorning from the journalism room, which has a concrete floor and is not carpeted.

But work continued into late morning to get the soaked carpeting out of Nye’s classroom.

Tom Bracciano, the district’s director of facilities and operations, said the contractor would dig a trench to divert the water away from the current school building.

Fernandez said this was the school’s second flood of the semester after a heavy rain.

On Oct. 11, a heavy rain brought water through a sinkhole into a basement high-voltage panel that forced the school to close for a day.