Graphic by Clara Boberg
Jessica Wu
News Reporter
Consecutive water pipe bursts lead to an electrical short, which disrupted classes and forced students to evacuate from the school in the freezing temperatures on January 3rd and 4th.
These recent pipe bursts are not the first for past bursts have occurred. However, this situation was unique due to the record breaking temperatures, which made the problem worse and more difficult to resolve.
During the initial water pipe burst, students waited outside for about fifteen minutes and were allowed to reenter once the school was deemed safe by local firefighters and policemen.
Another pipe burst later during that day, forced many student athletes and after school clubs to wait in the field house until the school was once again deemed safe.
In addition, during D block of the following day, yet another pipe burst prompted an evacuation for all students and faculty, but this time only lasting about ten minutes.
Some students, like sophomore Maggie Winters, were unbothered by the evacuations, saying that it did not disrupt their day nor the classes they were in at the time.
“I don’t think it was that big of a problem especially because I just had an elective during that period and didn’t miss anything important, and it was a small portion of one block, so it did not affect much,” Winters said.
However, other students, like junior Veer Sawhney, saw the pipe bursts as a source of confusion and chaos since they interrupted the regular school day and sent kids outside for an unknown reason.
“[The pipe bursts] created a lot of confusion throughout South because people did not know where to go or what was going on. I thought it was a fire drill and did not realize it was a pipe burst until the principal announced it over the loudspeaker,” Sawhney said. “It was also pretty hectic the first time because no one wanted to go outside in the cold and people were complaining.”
Agreeing with Sawhney, sophomore Carrie Monge found the pipe bursts to be an annoyance, for they forced students to go outside in the cold without any warning.
“The pipe burst was really annoying because, of course the one day I didn’t bring my jacket, it was freezing and the school didn’t tell us anything in advance, so I had to go outside wearing a thin shirt and it was terrible,” Monge said.
This confusion and frustration around the pipe leak was quickly quelled as the administration informed the students and families about the situation over the loudspeakers and through an email.
In Principal Joel Stembridge’s email, he stated that there was a slim chance there would be no school following the day of the first pipe burst, January 3rd, to ensure the safety of all students and faculty.
Winters approved of Stembridge’s email because he openly dealt with the problems at hand, all while soothing concerns some may have had following the incident.
“I appreciated that the school was being open about the situation and not just pretending that everything was fine. Their efforts to send out an email to remind students to keep their jackets with them was helpful, otherwise the disruptions could have been be very frustrating,” Winters said.
Not only was the administration open about the situation, but they also proceeded to work as fast as possible to fix the pipes by bringing in outside companies.
Vice Principal Steven Rattendi explains that while the bulk of the repair was done by an outside company, the custodians played a large role in fixing the pipes as well.
The custodians mitigated the initial damage by finding the shut off valves to prevent further damage as well as cleaning up the water from the bursts.
“The first day we came back [the custodians] were quite instrumental in making sure the damage didn’t become more extensive,” Rattendi said.
Going forward, the administration hopes to prevent and better respond to pipe bursts. Because the pipe bursts were mostly a product of the unusually cold weather, Rattendi explains that the South administration is focusing on monitoring the water pipes in order to prevent future accidents and avoid disrupting the school day.
