2008 Woodie Awards
Series of broken pipes leave some students without water
Anthony Glynn
Issue date: 2/20/07 Section: News
A week of water pipe breaks intermittently left hundreds of students without water on the campus during the past week, after an extended period of frigid temperatures tightened its grip on the campus' aging infrastructure.
Six pipe breaks occurred during the cold spell, facilities management officials said, with the latest breaking Sunday night between Taliaferro and Skinner Halls. Although the pipes did some damage to university property, most breakage proved to be just an inconvenience.
Students such as those in Talbot and Garrett halls went without water yesterday for about six hours.
Ground movement, inflexible and aging cast-iron pipes, coupled with rapidly changing temperatures provoked the breaks, said Michael Henson, manager of piped services at facilities management. And Dawn Forsythe, a community outreach manager with the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, said problems throughout the region were similar to those on the campus.
"The extreme fluctuations in temperature cause old water mains to break," Forsythe said. "So we are holding our breath with this week's thaw, hoping that nighttime temps don't dip too much."
Temperatures normally fluctuate over a spectrum of about 12 degrees at this time of year, according to the National Weather Service. But this weekend, fluctuations climbed to a spectrum of about 15 degrees on Friday, then jumped to a 25 degree spectrum on Saturday. That means Saturday, temperatures would have dropped a full 25 degrees from daytime highs to low temperatures that night.
Easton and Worcester Halls also had pipe breaks Friday and Sunday, respectively, said Terry Perkins, assistant director of facilities maintenance. Those breaks resulted in residents at Easton going without water for about 8 hours, Worcester for 13 hours and Talbot and Garrett yesterday for 5 hours, Perkins said.
Although facilities management discovered the break in Talbot and Garrett's pipeline Sunday night, workers did not shut off the water because the water flowed into a storm drain in Lot W1. They also noted leaving the water on allowed more residents to have water service.
Senior Spanish major Antoinette Flumo, a Garrett Hall resident, said she noticed bathroom facilities behaving erratically after a pipe broke near her dorm.
"Both of the toilets in the bathrooms were running continuously, and it sounded like the shower," Flumo said. "I called 4-work and ... asked if I could use the bathroom, and he said he didn't have the authority to decide that."
The university is affected more heavily than some areas by pipe breaks, WSSC's Forsythe said, because pipes here are more than 60 years old and are affected more often by fluctuating temperatures. The "older, more established areas have the oldest pipes," Forsythe said, and unless entire infrastructures are replaced, the problems usually continue.
Flumo confirmed the problems had been a problem before, saying there was a time last year when "we didn't have running water for like a day; we didn't have shower water, the toilet didn't flush, [and there was] no sink water."
Contact reporter Anthony Glynn at glynndbk@gmail.com.
Six pipe breaks occurred during the cold spell, facilities management officials said, with the latest breaking Sunday night between Taliaferro and Skinner Halls. Although the pipes did some damage to university property, most breakage proved to be just an inconvenience.
Students such as those in Talbot and Garrett halls went without water yesterday for about six hours.
Ground movement, inflexible and aging cast-iron pipes, coupled with rapidly changing temperatures provoked the breaks, said Michael Henson, manager of piped services at facilities management. And Dawn Forsythe, a community outreach manager with the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, said problems throughout the region were similar to those on the campus.
"The extreme fluctuations in temperature cause old water mains to break," Forsythe said. "So we are holding our breath with this week's thaw, hoping that nighttime temps don't dip too much."
Temperatures normally fluctuate over a spectrum of about 12 degrees at this time of year, according to the National Weather Service. But this weekend, fluctuations climbed to a spectrum of about 15 degrees on Friday, then jumped to a 25 degree spectrum on Saturday. That means Saturday, temperatures would have dropped a full 25 degrees from daytime highs to low temperatures that night.
Easton and Worcester Halls also had pipe breaks Friday and Sunday, respectively, said Terry Perkins, assistant director of facilities maintenance. Those breaks resulted in residents at Easton going without water for about 8 hours, Worcester for 13 hours and Talbot and Garrett yesterday for 5 hours, Perkins said.
Although facilities management discovered the break in Talbot and Garrett's pipeline Sunday night, workers did not shut off the water because the water flowed into a storm drain in Lot W1. They also noted leaving the water on allowed more residents to have water service.
Senior Spanish major Antoinette Flumo, a Garrett Hall resident, said she noticed bathroom facilities behaving erratically after a pipe broke near her dorm.
"Both of the toilets in the bathrooms were running continuously, and it sounded like the shower," Flumo said. "I called 4-work and ... asked if I could use the bathroom, and he said he didn't have the authority to decide that."
The university is affected more heavily than some areas by pipe breaks, WSSC's Forsythe said, because pipes here are more than 60 years old and are affected more often by fluctuating temperatures. The "older, more established areas have the oldest pipes," Forsythe said, and unless entire infrastructures are replaced, the problems usually continue.
Flumo confirmed the problems had been a problem before, saying there was a time last year when "we didn't have running water for like a day; we didn't have shower water, the toilet didn't flush, [and there was] no sink water."
Contact reporter Anthony Glynn at glynndbk@gmail.com.
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