Students at Grand Haven High School recently received two days off following flooding resulting from the failure of a boiler pipe on Wednesday, Oct. 9. The pipe, located in the ceiling between pods seven and eight, failed at 8:23 p.m., flooding the space between pods seven and eight with two inches of steaming water.
“I got a text from one of our cleaners saying it looks like we might have an emergency, one of our pipes is leaking,” said principal Tracy Wilson.
Wilson, along with other staff members, assessed the situation and called Servepro, the district’s choice for accident cleanup. They arrived at the scene around 10 p.m. and got to work immediately.
“They set up a bunch of dehumidifiers to get all the water out and fans to dry. They had about 100 units between upstairs and downstairs, ” said Wilson
One of the smoke alarms was also damaged during the flood, causing the fire alarm to be set off around 8:29 p.m. The lights and the cameras between pods seven and eight and three and four were damaged.
The fire sergeant arrived on Friday to check that the fire suppression system was not damaged. If damaged, the system will not offer the same degree of coverage, increasing the risk of a fire spreading. On Saturday, Servpro started the demolition, tearing all the drywall out after determining it would not dry.
“I’m very grateful that the building was not full when it burst and it didn’t happen at three a.m. because then we would have walked into that mess the next day. I am also very grateful to our cleaning staff who noticed it immediately,” said Wilson.
Over the next few weeks, experts will be evaluating the pipe system to ensure no future incidents.
“Our classrooms were not destroyed. None of the pipe was leaking into, directly into a classroom. So nobody’s teaching materials, nobody’s technology, personal items got destroyed. It certainly could have been a lot worse,” said Wilson.