Burst Pipe in Mott

Around 5 a.m. on Sunday, April 2, there was a disaster in Mott. According to maintenance worker Paul Hoffman, “One of the pipes blew that was under high pressure. Nobody knows exactly how long it was going, but maybe a half hour or 45 minutes." He said, “It was under such high pressure that it blew water everywhere and trashed the ceiling tiles, and it also leaked down to the first floor.” According to Hoffman, all they had to do to fix it was call in local mechanical company Hunter-Prell. It has since been resolved.

“They started working at 5:45 a.m on Sunday, and then finished by that evening,” said financial aid worker Richard Lehman. For Lehman works in the Student Services office that the pipe ran through, so the pipe’s breaking led to a flooded workplace. “We walked in and we had to be relocated,” Lehamn said from the Student Life office he was occupying temporarily. “We left a note on the door so students would be directed to us, and the Physical Plant was on it immediately,” Lehman said.

Paige Winberg, senior, is a science major, and said the pipe leaked into the science classrooms on the 1st floor. “One of the pipes in the heating system rusted out over Mott 103 and ended up leaking water that was full of some chemicals,” said Winberg. “It was all over our bird specimens, some of which were from the late 1800s. It was all over our feather collection, in our turtle’s pool.”

Photo by Ben Gur-Arie