PATA History Pages

North High School Flooding

Who is going to pay this bill?

At Pickerington North, it’s time to dry and dry again
No classrooms were flooded when the frozen pipes burst Monday, but the library was soaked.


Friday, January 30, 2004
Kathy Lynn Gray
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH


A search-and-destroy mission is on at Pickerington North High School.
For 24 hours a day since Monday, desert-dry air has been pumped into the school through hundreds of feet of clear plastic tubing. On the floor, 175 air movers blow it through halls and offices while the tentacles of sausagelike sacks inject the air into the walls.


The enemy is the water that shot out shortly before 8 a.m. Monday, when frozen pipes burst over the school’s library and the office below. For about 15 minutes, water gushed from the ceilings, until schoolmaintenance workers and Violet Township firefighters turned it off.


A waterfall splashed down the school’s center stairs, and carpet, furniture, walls, cabinets and books were drenched.


While school and construction officials sort out why sprinklersystem pipes in a 6-month-old building would burst and who will pay for the cleanup, workers from several companies have been attacking the most pressing problem: mopping up.


"The challenge is making sure you find all the moisture, that you don’t miss any pockets," said Tommy Gray, president of Buckeye Carpet Care of Pickerington, the company doing much of the work.


Gray has hooked up a huge dehumidifier outside the high school’s main entrance. Five strands of plastic tubing snake along the ceiling, carrying the super-dry air throughout the building to evaporate moisture on the floors and walls.


Holes the size of 50-cent pieces, drilled a foot apart along the bottoms of the walls, allow the air to circulate and dry the walls on both sides.


Every 24 hours, a worker gauges the moisture content of each wall with a meter. Similar measurements are taken of the flooring. As an added precaution, 20 "scrubbers" filter the air in the building.


"It could have been a lot worse," Principal Mike Smith said yesterday as he picked his way through the drying equipment and stacks of computer paper that had been pulled from wet storerooms.


He’s grateful the pipes burst on Monday, when students were home on a snow day. That gave crews time to soak up the water and set up equipment before students returned Tuesday.
The accident hasn’t affected students much because no classrooms were flooded. The library is out of commission, however, as staff members sort through wet books.
Superintendent Bob Thiede said the school district won’t bear the cost of the accident.


"We feel with a brand-new building like this, someone else is going to be responsible for the payment," he said. "We feel the people who put the building together will be responsible for that."


Thiede did not know what the cleanup or repairs would cost or why the pipes had burst. He said Turner Construction, which oversaw the building of the school, is investigating.


Dave Shirey, Turner project manager, could not be reached for comment yesterday.


Gray expects the drying to take seven to 10 days. He expects that two or three walls will have to be replaced, but the rest of the walls should be fine once they’re repaired.


The carpet in the library and office won’t need to be replaced, he said.
Some students are intrigued by the cleanup.


Senior Brianne Hoover, 17, said the puffy tubes running along the ceilings — similar to tunnel slides on a children’s playground — and the constant whir of the drying machines seem otherworldly.


"I feel like I’m in the movie E.T. or something," she said.
kgray@dispatch.com

North High School Dries Out

The Columbus Dispatch