Louisa County officials estimate that the damage from last week's magnitude-5.8 earthquake could be at least $70 million.
Authorities said damage to Louisa County High School and Thomas Jefferson Elementary School alone may total $57.5 million, according to a preliminary estimate.
Residential structures sustained nearly $11.5 million damage and government structures nearly $500,000 damage. The majority of residential structures had no earthquake insurance, officials said.
At a specially held joint meeting of the School Board and Board of Supervisors, school and county officials said they aren't sure whether the schools could be repaired or if they need to be replaced. Students, parents and teachers packed the Louisa School Board administration building in Mineral to standing-room-only Monday.
Students from Louisa County High will spend the school year at Louisa County Middle School, and Thomas Jefferson Elementary students will be housed in mobile units and classrooms at Trevilians Elementary School. Between the two schools, nearly 2,000 students were displaced after the quake.
According to county fire and rescue chief Scott Keim, damage to school buildings was at least $7 million more than the schools' insurance cap. Keim said the monetary damage will climb in the coming weeks, as assessments are finished.
"We have more than 600 damage reports in our database," Keim said. "I'm proud to say we've assessed or laid eyes on more than 400 of them, but (the damage) will climb."
County schools have been closed since the Aug. 23 earthquake and will not reopen until Sept. 12. In an attempt to return to "normal," schools Superintendent Deborah Petit said, there will be new open houses for middle school and high school students. The open houses will be on separate nights at Louisa County Middle.
Pending final reports by engineers assessing damage to the two buildings, the county may have to replace the middle and elementary schools. Those reports could take three more weeks to complete.
In the meantime, students from both schools could be spending two to three years in modular structures while construction is completed.
Two more aftershocks rattled the county Monday night.
Aftershocks have been frequent since last week's quake that damaged hundreds of homes and other structures in Louisa. The U.S. Geological Survey recorded a 2.2-magnitude quake at 7:39 p.m., 3 miles south southwest of Mineral, and a 2.6 at 11:48 p.m., 6 miles south southwest of Mineral.
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