A frozen water pipe at school may seem like a little thing. The reality is, it is not. It creates hallways with ankle deep rivers, and classrooms carpets furnishings and textbooks both soaked and ruined. Not to mention initiates quite the clean up project and hassle for our staff and students. The frozen water pipe discovery, cleanup, and repair program is something the high school knows well.
On the fourth weekend of January, two pressurized water pipes in the high school burst. The first one froze and cracked on Saturday January 24th, the second on Sunday, January 25th. The first caused flooding by the collaboration room and was discovered by a custodian, which led to sprinklers going off by the band and choir room. The second pipe burst caused a sprinkler to go off in the science hallway. Band director Greg Wells discovered this mess upon arrival to school and informed facilities director Jerry Klekotka, who then went to the school to turn the water off. The fire department also responded. Pipes bursting is a common thing that causes floods during extreme cold winter days in Michigan. Northview is well versed on how to take care of this issue when it presents itself.
Having worked with the district for 33 years, Klekotka has had similar weather conditions cause similar damage within Northview in years prior.
“It has happened before, and I’m not sure how many times, but actually last year, I think we did have it happen in the similar area,” Klekotka said.
One teacher affected by this flood is American Sign Language teacher, Marie Deregnaucourt. Though she expected the worst of damage, she was happy that the impact of these burst pipes was limited.
“It was only for a very short time. What happened was it came down the hallway and then filtered into my room. But the way that it did, I was super lucky because it just went into the middle of the room. It didn’t get to my desk or my couch or my bookcase. It was very localized,” Deregnaucourt said.
Biology, Anatomy, and Physiology teacher John Wojciakowski also had his classroom flood. When thinking back to the previous flood, he was ready for the worst, but discovered minor damage.
“This time we had probably a half inch that went in, it made two thirds of the way across the room. So a lot of moisture did not soak into the wood cabinets and stuff like that,” Wojciakowski said.
Klekotka handles situations like this in a step by step process, hoping to have the issue repaired and mess cleaned as fast as possible.
“First order of business is to get the water shut off, because it’s pouring out. There’s just a ton of water. And this one actually, because it happened in those two classrooms, what it did is it froze the sprinkler head in both, the science wing and over by Mrs. Deregnaucourt’s room as well. Then it’s just cleaning up, and getting things dried out,we used a remediation company for that, to get that stuff done,” Klekotka said.
Klekotka expected a relaxing Sunday, but instead was called down to handle business. After getting the water shut off, the long process of cleaning up began.
“On Sunday is when the sprinkler went off down by Mr. Wojo’s classroom, I was home for that one, so I had to get up here to get the water shut off, there was more water on the ground. Mr. Wells was here, and we got it cleaned up, he and I. So it does take time. But the one down on Sunday was on hard floor, so we just used our machines to clean it up, but there was a lot of water,” Klekotka said.
The process of cleaning up and fixing broken pipes takes time and effort.It requires helping hands from everyone. Luckily the situation was taken care of very quickly, and the pipes were caught early thanks to Klekotka’s quick thinking.
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