Water main break halts classes

North Lake College's Irving campus was evacuated and closed for four days due to a water main break discovered near South Loop Drive at 6 a.m. on Jan. 20.

The closure, which disrupted the first week of spring classes, caused instructors to re-arrange their assignment calendars and affected most students and all staff. However, without water to operate the college's infrastructure, a decision was made to close the campus.

"Between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m., I was starting to roll out phone calls to Christa Slejko and Linda Glasscock," said Facilities DirectorJohn Watson, about the early morningcoordination and decision-making with some of North Lake's topadministrators.

The evacuation and closure came when students, faculty and staff were arriving on campus. People who were already on campuswere instructed to leave. Others on campus did not receive the same instructions.

Cars arriving at North Lake were directed away from NLC by North Lake police. The lack of clear information caused some drivers to circle around to another entrance where they were turned away a second time.

NLCPD requested portable roadway signage from the City of Irving, but the request could not be fulfilled in time to fix what many described as a chaotic situation on streets leading to campus. Many staff members suggested electronic signs at campus entrances to allow for quick message changes.

"I came in at 9 a.m. and it was a nightmare on the road," said Charlotte Rike, history instructor, in a public meeting held when classes resumed. "We didn't know if faculty should be on campus."

Engineers contracted Jan. 20 to repair the water main attribute its rupture to "soil conditions and the age of the pipe," said Watson. According to Watson, water analysis was a crucial part of the repair because of potential bacterial contamination of the water supply. NLC was re-opened when the lab okayed the water supply.

Many areas on campus are under construction, including major excavation to complete phase II and III of the north parking lot project. The water main that ruptured is not located in a construction zone and is reported by campus offi cials to be unrelated to work being performed elsewhere by contractors.

It remains unclear whether a call made to campus police on the night of Thursday, Jan. 19, might have prevented the water main break andschool closure.

Thursday, at approximately 8:40 p.m., Information Technology Instructor Tim Gottleber encountered something that concerned him as he walked to his car in the South Loop Drive parking lot. Water was escaping from beneath the ground - enough water that he contacted campus police using the call box adjacent to the faculty parking lot.

"It was probably a 12-inch diameter upwelling," he said, describing one of two holes in the ground from which water was gushing. "It looked like an incredible spring" and was streaming towards the golf course, he said.

The next day at 6 a.m., low water pressure on campus led facilities crews to the ruptured water main. Slightly more than nine hours arlier, Gottleber had walked from the parking lot to the emergency call box that routed him to an operator at DCCCD's dispatch center, housed at Brookhaven College. He said the operator asked him to wait on the line while she cleared some calls. Gottleber waited while listening in on transmissions and calls being addressed by the dispatch center.

All telephone and call box calls from DCCCD's seven campuses are fielded at the central dispatch center. The calls are simultaneously aired to all police band radios district-wide.

When Gottleber told the operator "there was a major problem" at North Lake, and a significant amount of water was streaming from the upwelling he was told that the dispatcher would "take care of it." He disconnected and stood by the scene to direct offi cers toward the problem.

At 9 p.m. no one had arrived, so he left with the impression that a solution was underway. Gottleber said he is familiar with the NLC police department and views their work on the Irving campus favorably. However, he was surprised to see the situation, which he tried to prevent, airing on the local news the next day.