Philomath Middle School students went to class Friday morning with no running water in the building thanks to an apparent pipe burst under the asphalt in the facility’s west parking lot. Port-a-potties, hand-washing stations and bottled water were all brought in to help keep classes going for the half-day session.
“It was fortunate that we were there during the day — if it had happened at night, there would’ve been a lot more water loss,” Philomath Middle School Principal Steve Bell said. “Spring Break is right around the corner so hopefully the fix can occur during that time and it’s a very minor disruption.”
The water break was discovered Thursday afternoon. Bell said a custodian urged him to come outside to the west parking lot — quickly.
“We saw water coming out of the ground where the parking lot meets the sidewalk,” Bell said. “Water’s just bubbling out of the ground,” Bell said.
A call immediately went to the school district’s facilities maintenance foreman, Ryan Vaughan, and the building’s water was shut off, Bell said. The process then started with bringing in a company to locate the pipe.
Bell said Thursday evening that the cause or size of the pipe damage was not yet known. On Friday morning, workers were on site excavating a northeast corner section of the west parking lot to find answers.
“In the meantime, we’ve purchased a lot of bottles of water, got some hand sanitizers back out and we’re moving over the port-a-potties under the play shed,” Bell said. “So we’ll be able to hold school with all of those pieces and the kitchen staff’s ready to go.”
Bell and Jamon Ellingson, assistant principal, went to Safeway and Bi-Mart while clerical staff ran over to Dollar General to purchase bottles of water, Superintendent of Schools Susan Halliday said. Bell reported that about 500 bottles had been purchased.
“What they don’t use tomorrow we’ll use for district or school-based events and activities,” Halliday said.
The district checked in with the Benton County Health Department to make sure the school could operate under those conditions. Also, Philomath Fire and Rescue consulted with the school on the situation with its fire suppression system.
“Our fire sprinkler line is a different line than the general line to the building, which is up to code, so fire safety’s good,” Bell said.
Without knowing the source and scope of the damage, the school district has no idea about any sort of cost that could be associated with it. The fix could be paid for through a combination of what’s covered in the school district’s insurance and out of contingency funds.
“We’ve just got to find ways to make it happen,” Halliday said. “We’re in the process of rebuilding contingencies to be able to take care of things just like this to not get stuck. Hopefully, it won’t be a real deep dig across a lot of space but that’s a bridge we’ll cross when we get to it.”
As Bell mentioned, the fact that the water leak occurred during the day could be seen as fortuitous. There have been a few other water-related incidents in the past that happened during off hours.
“We’ve had water come out of the boiler room and flood the main hallway,” Bell said. “Outside, I had a fire sprinkler burst in a freeze … and it flooded the parking lot with ice.”
