Water floods Hagen over break

by: Heather Venema
Editor-in-Chief

While most people were ringing in 2006 with family and friends, an unlikely situation in a residence hall forced some to alter their evening plans.

On Saturday, December 31, at approximately 11:20 p.m., the fire alarm went off in Hagen, due to an activation of the sprinkler system.

The alarm sent three fire trucks and a squad car screaming to campus, and Emily Meyer, Franklin Hall director, responded to the situation for Residence Life.

But what the fire trucks and St. Ambrose personnel found was far from a fire.

A sprinkler nozzle on first floor Hagen had been knocked off the wall, causing water to come pouring into the hall.

Speculation is that a small refrigerator door was used to knock the sprinkler head off, but an investigation is still under way and nothing has been confirmed.

Jim Hannon, director of physical plant, says that the water coming out of the nozzle was under 100-125 pounds of pressure.

The force of the water bored a hole in the wall on the opposite side of the hallway. The water then proceeded to fill up in the light fixtures and spill into rooms.

“You’ve got to figure the water was running for 20 minutes before the fire department could shut it off,” Hannon said. “All I know is it was a lot of water.”

Estimates are that at the height of the situation, the hallway had 2-3 inches of water in it, with some common areas in apartments 112-116 receiving up to an inch.

The few students that were staying in Hagen for the evening were evacuated with the fire alarm, and Meyer said most of them left, rather than wait outside.

Meyer says that roughly 15 firemen began pushing the water down the hall and into the drain in the first floor mechanical room.

“They weren’t thrilled to be spending their New Year’s Eve like this, but they went right to work and had a lot of the cleanup done before I even got there,” Meyer said. “I have a new appreciation for what those guys do.”

Assisting the firemen and evaluating the damage were Hannon, Larry Busch, director of custodial services, and Doug Coobs, who works with the HVAC systems. Hannon says the three were there until about 3:30 a.m., moving belongings and putting fans out to help things dry.

While Hannon says he hoped that would be enough, the walls were punched with a moisture meter a few days later, and still found to be saturated.

“The bottom of the sheetrock sat in that water and just sucked it up,” Hannon said.

Holes were drilled in some of the walls to create more ventilation, but when evidence of mold was discovered, different measures were taken.

“Our biggest concern was indoor air-quality issues,” Hannon said. For fire code purposes, the walls are two layers of sheetrock, with insulation in between. This design allowed workers to cut out the bottom two feet of the sheetrock in the hallway, without disturbing residences.

Fans dried the insulation and interior apartment walls that shared a border with the hallway, but four of the six affected apartments still had to have some cutting done to dry out the walls in the living areas and bedrooms.

Hannon estimates damage at several thousand dollars. Besides having to wash some clothes, personal damages were kept to a minimum.

Brandi Schuman, area coordinator for preferred housing, said that incidents like this really increase the efforts of the campus.

“It’s frustrating that what is an accident or mischievous behavior is still creating work three weeks later,” Schuman said.

New sheetrock was put in shortly after the hall reopened, but this summer, crews will need to mud, paint, and replace the baseboards. Hannon said that so far the carpet seems to be fine.