Description: Pools of water throughout the S-Wing hallway due to ruptured pipe
Source: Emily Saldana
On Jan. 17, members of the Saint Xavier University community came across pools of water throughout the S-Wing hallway and classrooms S108 and S110.
Peter Skach, Director of Facilities Services, stated that “due to the extreme cold temperatures outside, an internal water pipe in one of the first floor S-Wing rooms froze and ruptured, causing some flooding of the neighboring rooms.”
Campus was closed on Jan. 12 due to a snow warning and on Jan. 16 due to the freezing and occasional subzero temperatures.
The city of Chicago reached temperatures as low as minus 9 degrees F early in the morning of Tuesday, Jan. 16.
The excess water from the rushing pipe was identified by a full-time member of the Information Technology (IT) department and another member of the department, noted Director of Client-Services Rola Othman.
Othman added that the full-time member was “in that hallway to do something else and when the water started gushing, he saw that and he was the one that notified everybody else.”
They were then able to rush into S108 and unplug “anything that needed unplugging that was on the floor, and then kind of lifted it out and got it on the tables and things like that,” confirmed Othman.
The IT members were already in the hallway working on another project, which allowed for them to react in the quick manner necessary to navigate the situation.
“We do have some inground ports in that room, but we have not used them for years, so we did not really have any impact or anything like that” Othman said in regards to room S108.
Othman clarified that the inground ports, which are not in use, were the only technological items to be damaged, as all cords had already been unplugged and placed on tables by the full-time member of the IT Department.
Other items were located in the metal AV cabinets, however due to the technology not being located on the bottom shelves, it would not have been damaged had the water reached more than just the carpet.
Senior Alyssa Caracheo stated that she was in room S110 when the pipe ruptured and that it went unnoticed until “someone from the back of the room pointed out that our room was flooding. Many people, including myself, had to pick up their backpacks off the floor so they wouldn’t get wet.”
Caracheo, whose class was in the middle of a lecture at the time the pipe ruptured, confirmed that her class was relocated. Skach confirmed the classes in S108 and the following classes in S110 were also relocated.
Due to room S108 being carpeted, it was offline for a day in order for the carpet to dry.
Skach noted that this was the first incident in S-Wing regarding issues with the pipes.
He added that the campus has not had “any other internal pipe ruptures due to the cold yet this winter”, and the incident in S-Wing was the first issue caused by the weather.
Issues with facilities and technology were expected due to the weather conditions, both Skach and Othman stated. Bad weather, such as heavy rains or in this case, subzero temperatures, often cause issues with pipe systems and technology. Pipes often freeze due to quick and substantial drops in temperature, which was the case in regards to the ruptured pipe in the S-Wing first floor.
“When you have the weather the way we have had the weather, you tend to come back to more requests, more support, more needs,” stated Othman.
Skach also noted that the facilities staff had been very busy “attending to heat related requests as anticipated given the extreme outside conditions.”
“The weather does impact a little bit, so we do see a surge of more requests come through, more support needs. Other than that, for us this is normal,” expressed Othman. She added that weather related requests were usually related to classroom projectors not projecting properly and needing to be rebooted, or a power surge causing cabling to go bad.
For technology related issues, university community members should contact TheHub through their Client Portal.
The city of Chicago’s temperature is projected to climb back up to the mid-to-high 30s by Jan. 23 and continue climbing to the low 40s by Feb. 2 according to The Weather Channel.