Following a serious pipe bust in the Art building on Southeast’s main campus, Southeast has come to the decision to close the building. Faculty have been moved into Pacific and Carnahan Hall and classes have been placed into various buildings on campus.
The pipe burst on the bottom floor of the building, creating a hole in the wall and eventually filling an elevator shaft. This resulted in about 3-4 inches of oil and water flooding the bottom floor.
Southeast custodian, Shanna Robert, helped clean up the mess in the building on June 30. She said it took about six hours to clean most of the mess before quitting for the day. She returned the next day with a team to clean the remaining mess, which she said was mostly oil from the elevator shaft.
Facilities Management Director Angela Meyer shared in detail what happened.
A section of pipe within the wall cavity on the lower level of the art building had two different material types connected, Meyer explained. The materials then busted, creating a waterfall that flooded the lower level.
Meyer said the cause may be a combination of the age of the facility and the pairing of two incompatible material types, causing corrosion.
The burst had occurred the weekend prior to June 30 and had already accumulated 2-3 inches of flooding before being cleaned up.
Meyer explained the drywall was immediately removed to mitigate any issues further down the line. She said the team was prepared to put the drywall back up but decided it was best to close the building.
Although the incident was inconvenient, Meyer said the timing could not have worked better.
“It just so happened Crisp’s renovation had just finished up, and we moved nursing back over into Crisp and we just moved our faculty over into Pacific,” Meyer said.
Meyer noted while this move was easy, the thought of another building having a similar issue causes concern.
“In this particular incident, we were very fortunate….. Now if we were to have another incident in another building it would be a little bit more challenging, we don’t have just open space sitting available,” Meyer said
Southeast professor of history, David Cameron had to move his office from Carnahan to Pacific due to overcrowding. He received an email mid-summer informing him of the move.
His office was originally in Carnahan and moved to Pacific Hall. He also had classes in the art building that were relocated to various buildings on campus.
When asked how permanent the change of offices would be, Cameron said, “I was told that the move to Pacific was ‘indefinite.’ I would bet that we would be here for several years.”
Meyer shared Southeast is trying its best to work with the state to receive money for renovations. Each year they have put up a capital request to the state, and for the past nine years, the art building has been listed as the No. 1 building to receive funding but has yet to receive any.
“We don’t have state funding or the institutional funding to do any of the renovations necessary, so it will very likely sit for a period of time,” Meyer said.
Despite the difficulty for faculty and staff, Meyer said she does not see much inconvenience for students.
“I feel that we have done an excellent job really trying to put [students] first and foremost, so that faculty stay together as a department and students know where to find them. I feel like we’ve done everything trying to make it as convenient to the students as possible for when they do come back and have classes,” Meyer said.
Four classrooms and the archeology lab have been relocated to Pacific Hall, and all classes originally housed by the Art Building have been moved to various buildings on campus.
