The Bergendoff Hall of Fine Arts and Centennial Hall were closed today due to a chilled water line that burst in a mechanical room on Friday night.
Vice President Kent Barnds said the burst in Bergendoff was discovered Saturday morning after some lights were not working. The power to the building was immediately switched off since approximately six feet of water was found in the mechanical room.
He said the building is expected to open at 7 a.m. tomorrow.
“The one thing we remain uncertain about is when all of the mechanical systems in Bergendoff will return to normal, such as air conditioning,” said Barnds. “Those sort of things we would hope (to fix) by the end of this week, but we are still working through those processes.”
According to an email sent out by the Dean of Students office, power was restored this morning, but the extent of damage to phone and data lines is still unclear. There are disruptions to Bergendoff, Centennial, Carver, Abbey Art Studio, the art annex, Knowlton, the College Center and Denkmann concerning phone and internet usage.
Barnds said that the phone system for the school is located in Centennial Hall, so when the power was cut, so were the phone lines. This is why Public Safety had to change numbers on Saturday and Sunday until a generator could be installed to regain phone service.
Barnds said the pipe that burst was replaced approximately three months ago.
According to an email sent out by Keri Rursch, executive director of public relations, 17 Monday classes normally held in Bergendoff were moved to different locations across campus.
“All life safety, so fire alarms and all that, has been restored, so the building is safe for use,” said Barnds. “We just don’t know the extent to which potential damage has impacted our ability to conduct classes in the building at least for the foreseeable future.”
He said classes that do not have technology demands can meet in Bergendoff, but Provost Pareena Lawrence is working with professors that need technology to teach.
“That’s more precautionary than anything,” said Barnds. “We don’t know that there are failures. We are just trying to plan as effectively as we can.”
Groups that normally meet in Bergendoff on Monday were moved or cancelled, such as Augustana Choir, who had to practice in the College Center Boardroom.
“It’s a little bit of an inconvenience, but I get that you got to do what you got to do to fix things,” said choir member Kelsey Schauer. “It’s kind-of weird that we are having choir in the boardroom today. I’m not sure how the acoustics are going to be.”
Conductor Jon Hurty said that the choir was able to find a meeting place, unlike the band and orchestra who could not move their equipment or find a place to hold all of their equipment for a rehearsal.
Hurty said the pipe that broke was recently fixed to solve another problem, which could have to do with the age of the building.
“When something like this happens, it alerts everybody to the reality of dealing with a building that has problems,” said Hurty. “Even if the pipe was newly replaced, the reason it was replaced was because the building was old and the systems needed to be upgraded. So, I think what it does for everyone is to understand that the situation is relatively urgent.”
Barnds said it is too early to estimate the cost of this incident.
“We are at the really early stages of identifying what sort of damage to mechanical systems, to phones, to data, so we don’t really have a sense,” said Barnds. “What we are trying to do is work as quickly as we can to address this and get things back to normal.”