Pipe Bursts in Student Center
A pipe in the ceiling of the second floor of the Phillips Academy Center burst, forcing students and faculty to vacate the building last Wednesday night. The water leakage from one of the pipes caused considerable damage to multiple floors, closing off certain areas of the building to students.
Campus Safety forced clubs such as Feminist Club, Afro-Latino Exonians Society and The Exonian to vacate the building once they were notified of the water leakage. Senior and co-head of Feminist Club Autumn Herness explained that at first, students assumed that the sound they heard was coming from the shower in the Day Student Lounge, so no one took action. “After a few minutes, though, the air got really warm, and it smelled almost musty,” Herness said. “So at that point, we had to leave.” Fortunately, students could evacuate the building using a back staircase without having to walk through the water leakage, which was closer to the front.
“Due to the quick actions of first the custodial team with their wet vacuums and then the plumbers getting the main valve shut the damage was mitigated.”
Member of Feminist Club and lower Wynter Tracey was one of the first people to witness the scene. “The floor had been flooded and the tiles of the ceiling were on the ground. I had to ask someone to call Campus Safety because the rest of the people were just sitting inside the room without knowing what was happening outside,” Tracey said.
Academic Support Counselor Pamela Paris was also in the building when the water leakage began. The notification that she had to cancel the nightly Peer Tutoring session only an hour in surprised her. “The problem was at the other end of the building and one floor down, so we had no damage at all,” Parris said. Despite this, her Study Skills class had to meet in another building the next day.
Editors of The Exonian especially struggled to find a space to work on the issue that was to be published the next day. When they noticed the flood outside their door, they still had hours of work to do, so editors worked with computers in the library for the rest of the night. After getting permission from Dean Cosgrove to leave their dorms at 4 a.m. and work in the Academy Center, the newly-appointed 139th Board successfully completed their first issue. Editor-in-Chief Emily Pelliccia expressed pride at her team’s hardwork and dedication. “We were able to finish the first issue on time, but it was a difficult way to start our tenure,” she said. “The fact that we did complete it on time makes it seem a lot easier from here.”
Many offices, such as Student Activities, located on the floor, were spared from further damage. “Due to the quick actions of first the custodial team with their wet vacuums and then the plumbers getting the main valve shut the damage was mitigated,” Director of Student Activities Joanne Lembo said. Besides the structural damages of the ceiling, the PAC suffered little harm. The building was back to full operation within 48 hours, as repairs on the pipe were performed within hours of the leak’s discovery of the leak.
According to Director of Projects and Building Systems Mark Leighton, the water leakage was the result of a damaged fitting on a two and a half inch hot water heating pipe. Although the pipe had a very small leak in the beginning, after some time, the water pressure overcame the corroded fitting. He added that the part that failed was installed during the building renovation in the early 2000’s. The department is researching to confirm that the fitting was used in the correct application.
To prevent situations like these in the future, Leighton and his department plan on pressure testing the system to make sure that there will not be any more compromised fittings. “The water leak caused significant damage but the damage could have been worse if it wasn’t for the quick notification to Campus Safety by the building occupants and the swift response by our custodians and mechanical systems staff,” Leighton said.