Water damage disrupts school day for third time in five months

A pipe supplying water to a coffee maker in the upstairs teacher workroom at the north end of the academic hallway burst over the weekend, pooling on the floor, before seeping through the floor and causing damage to several rooms on the first floor.

“It happened because we had a hose come loose from one of our appliances, and it just caused the water to flow free,” assistant principal Phil Brown said. “We don’t know how long, but it was unchecked.”

This marks the third time since December that an emergency response company has been contacted to handle the water damage.

“We have a service that comes out and deals with situations such as this, as this is our third incident with water damage,” Brown said. “We have a very well-staffed and well-practiced group that comes out to deal with this.”

Algebra teacher Lanae Rainey was the first to discover the incident as she entered the school in the morning.

“I came in this morning in the back doors by the portables, and when I walked in, I heard a dripping sound,” Rainey said. “I looked over and saw water dripping from the ceiling and water all over the floor in that back English hallway. I thought it was a sprinkler because I could hear a whooshing sound, so I walked into the math workroom and saw the water line from the coffee maker just spewing everywhere.”

Multiple teachers have been relocated to either the library, portables, or other classrooms while repairs take place, forcing teachers to rework lesson plans.

“For today we’ve just been relocated to the library, but they are working very hard in the lab right now getting the computers all out, and they will be testing things to see what will be okay,” yearbook advisor Carole Babineaux said. “I’ll just have to rework plans for my photo kids so we can see how they will get their work done without their computers.”

Despite the inconvenience the water damage caused, teachers and students are doing their best to cope with the situation.

“At the beginning of the day, I was walking down the hall, and Mr. Melton told me that the work room had been flooded and my room was flooded, so we really got off to a rough start,” AP English language teacher Chad Doty said. “After the beginning of class where I talked a little bit about what happened and showed some pictures, [the students] kind of calmed down, but I also think I have pretty mature students.”

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  • AP Lang teacher Chad Doty found his classroom flooded this morning, and was soon relocated to C140

  • Water gathered in the corner of the classroom after a pipe broke in the upstairs teacher workroom.

  • Ceiling tiles in the downstairs workroom filled with water and eventually burst.

  • Restoration Specialists wee called when the flooding was originally found Monday morning.

  • Teacher’s desks in the workroom were destroyed by the water and tiles.

  • Doors that lead to the portables and back staircase have been closed off to students as teams are doing their best to restore the damage.

  • The yearbook classroom took a big hit with lots of equipment being subject to water damage.

  • The back door to the English hallway was left open to help dry out the floors.

  • Teacher computers in the workroom are being tested to see what is salvageable.

  • With water still pooled on the floor of the yearbook room, cleanup began as soon as the damage was discovered with more than half of the computers in the room moved out and possibly suffering damage.

  • The yearbook room suffered perhaps the most damage and water poured down through a ceiling tile before pooling on the floor.