Breached water line causes flooding at Highland High School
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POCATELLO – A water line breach caused a flood in a hallway of Highland High School that flowed into the school’s gym and commons.
The breach occurred Wednesday afternoon on a day when the majority of the staff and student body were away from the school. Due to the quick response from maintenance, the Pocatello Fire Department and the students and faculty still in the building, the breach was contained quickly and the water was cleaned up before Thursday.
“We had people immediately respond and try to mitigate the damage to the best of their ability,” said Courtney Fisher, spokesperson for Pocatello/Chubbuck School District 25.
The water line, which was a part of the water suppression fire system, was damaged just after 3:15 p.m. accidentally by the demolition crew currently removing the school’s old D wing. The crew pulled an unenergized wire running through an abandoned electrical junction box, fell and breached the 1 inch sprinkler line.
The crew was working in the upper level B hallway, located adjacent to the school’s remaining gym. Although this part of the school will remain intact, the demolition crew still has to disconnect the utilities of the old D wing from the rest of the building.
There have been no reported injuries from the resulting flood. While there were some students and faculty in the building, the incident took place on a non-instruction day.
There had been students taking the PSAT, but they had left the building by then. The students and faculty in the building were there for athletic activities.
Two short videos sent to EastIdahoNews.com show water dripping from the ceiling, flowing down the sloped upper hallway in the immediate aftermath of the flooding. The water flowed into the small gym, 3 classrooms and a portion of the commons before it was stopped.
Once the flooding began, Fisher said that the maintenance crew quickly responded to the scene while some teachers and coaches tried to shut the water off. The Fire Department also responded quickly to the building’s emergency call.
“It was good that we didn’t have students in class there, but it was good that we had people on site because we could immediately address the situation instead of it happening after hours when nobody was there,” Fisher said.
Watching on the district’s camera, Fisher saw faculty and first responders quickly address the accident and began cleaning up water, using mops, fans and rugs to stuff under doorways to prevent further water flow.
“Everybody pulls together and works together to mitigate the damage when these kinds of accidents happen,” Fisher said.
This isn’t the first time water has collected on the gym floor. After the April fire, the school district replaced the remaining gym’s flooring due to the water damage caused by the sprinkler system.
Around four days after the floors were put in, while fire restoration work was still being done on the roof, a large rainstorm provided water that dripped onto the floor. Fisher wouldn’t use the word “flooding” to describe this incident, as they only had to clean the floors and didn’t have to replace them again.
“We just made sure that we got fans in there to dry that out immediately and there was no damage sustained to that floor,” Fisher said.
The school district is still in the process of accessing the damage from Wednesday’s flood. They have not determined what work remains to clean up after the incident.
Firefighters responding to the flood were able to leave around two hours after the incident began. While school resumed on Thursday, the upper level B hallway and small gym will remain closed until further notice.
