The sun was out but staff and students arrived on campus Monday morning to a wet surprise as several classrooms in the E-hall were flooded after a water heater burst over the weekend.
“We showed up this morning on campus and found that over the weekend, the hot water heater that’s located in E101 had flooded and busted,” Associate Principal Tyler Wicke said. “It had actually flooded out. It started in a closet in E101 and kind of went through the walls and hit all the classrooms down in that area.”
Despite the unexpected challenge, the school’s response was swift to ensure that learning continued uninterrupted.
“In terms of fixing this we’re really lucky being in a district like Frisco ISD that has a lot of services and a lot of support,” Wicke said. “We can reach out to our district level people and they have a whole restoration crew here within 45 minutes. They’re here all day drying things out and making sure that everything’s in operating order before we put people back in those rooms.”
Restoration efforts began soon after the problem was discovered but there was no saving some of the items hung on the walls, specifically some Student Council posters.
“We’re bummed about the flood, but we’re working with what we have,” StuCo vice president, senior Kathryn Murphy said. “Not all of our posters are ruined, just like a couple of ours. So this week we’re gonna be working hard getting that stuff done so that next week we’re ready to go.”
The water damage wasn’t limited to the halls as it impacted the interiors of classrooms as well.
“Well when I first got here this morning, we were supposed to be having FFA and when I saw all the water in our classroom, I knew that probably wasn’t going to happen this morning,” Agriculture Science teacher Britney Avant said. “This was the most water we’ve ever had in the classroom. When we found out it had spread to the carpeted classrooms as well it changed it into a whole different ball game for us.”
For Fashion Design student, senior Sophia Hung, the water has noticeably affected classroom materials and learning.
“In Fashion Design there was a corner filled with water and some patterns were fully soaked because of the water leak,” Hung said. “I could definitely tell it stressed out the teachers especially when their stuff for class was affected by the water.”
Classes are being relocated for the time being while the water damage is getting assessed and repaired.
“We had to move some people around,” Wicke said. “For right now, teachers in those rooms are telling students where they’re going to be located. Hopefully for the most part those relocations will be limited to just today and maybe tomorrow.”
