Business Admin Arrives to Work to Find Water Gushing From Bathroom

Matt Shevenell unlocked the superintendent's office Friday morning and immediately knew something was amiss.

"I could hear a torrent of water coming from somewhere in the building," he said.

As he came through the vestibule into the front office, he could tell the noise was coming from the left, and when he looked down the hallway, water was pouring out from the under the men's bathroom door.

Shevenell said he hurried to the bathroom, thinking the toilet was overflowing, only to find it wasn't the basin, but the tank. The small braided pipe that runs from the tank had split open sometime overnight causing the tank to just continually fill and water was spilling all over the floor.

Shevenell said he turned the water shut off valve and thankfully stopped the gushing.

His next move was to call Tom Touseau the facilities director over in the maintenance office.

"When he answered I told him, 'Tom, we've got a big problem,'" Shevenell said. There was about an inch and a half to two inches of water in the basement and it was gushing through the ceiling and down the walls in and near the payroll office, located under the men's room.

At 2:30 p.m., about seven hours after Shevenell opened the office to find a wading pool in the basement, heavy duty fans and industrial dehumidifers were loudly humming away blowing around the warm breeze coming through the open windows all around the office.

The smell of wet carpet clung to the air and the basement remained a disheveled mess of furniture and equipment moved out of the flood zone.

A large trash barrel had about three inches of water in the bottom and was being fed by a constant source of water through a tube, that was a dehumidifer sucking water from the air, Shevenell said.

Shevenell said Human Resources Director Linda Hastings, whose office is right next to the bathroom, had been in the building until about 8:30 Thursday night and nothing was amiss when she left. He arrived at 7:30 a.m., so the pipe split some time in that 11 hours.

When Shevenell discovered the problem, the water had been flooding the building for a considerable amount of time and though the pool of water on the top floor was contained mostly to the bathroom a small part of the hallway and the HR and Superintendent's offices, it was a whole other story in the basement, which houses three more offices and a set of cubicles for three others.

The payroll office took the brunt of the damage. Water was coming through the ceiling and down the walls into the basement, leaving an inch and a half to two inches of water in the basement with the deepest being in the payroll office.

All of the computer equipment was destroyed, Shevenell said.

"We picked up the computer and about a gallon of water came out of it," he said.

Also destroyed were the monitor, keyboard, an HP printer, a fax machine and the special printer used to issue the district's paychecks.

Shevenell said Touseau and maintenance crews got to work immediately using a "super sucker" to start extracting water from the rugs. They collected the district's army of fans and dehumidifiers and plugged them in all around the building.

The damage in the basement rendered it unusable for at least Friday.

"That was my Friday morning surprise," Shevenell said.

In addition to the as yet to be determined damage, it essentially took away a day of meaningful work for several people who were displaced or had to spend the day cleaning up the mess.

Shevenell said a full damage assessment still needs to happen. An insurance adjuster had been over earlier in the day with Touseau and a remediation company will be over sometime hopefully later today to assess the potential damage in to the walls and insulation. They will also bring heavier duty machines to try to completely dry out the rugs, Shevenell said, but there is a good chance they will have to be ripped up and replaced.

This is the second major water incident that has damaged district offices since November. During Hurricane Sandy, the roof was ripped off of the special services office in the blue ranch house adjacent to the high school.

The building suffered serious water damage and underwent a weeks-long renovation to replace the roof, flooring, walls and ceilings that were damaged. The basement, which had been used as office space until that time was discontinued as office space, the employees down there relocated to other buildings in the district.

The basement, which has long had water problems is now used only as storage space.

Shevenell said the district has gone years without any major insurance claims at these aging buildings, so to have two in just a span of months is highly unusual.

Insurance will cover any necessary repairs, minus the $1,000 deductible Shevenell said.

Members of the school board and planning and building committee have in recent weeks highlighted the need for a new central office building, which is proposed as article 2 on the warrant being voted on next Tuesday, April 9.

The two, 40-year-old ranch-style houses that hold the superintendent and special services offices have significant issues not the least of which include a lack of space, lack of privacy and lack of functionality. Replacement of the buildings has been part of the capital plan for years, but regularly put on the back burner to address issues within the classroom.

The time is now, board members say, pointing out that it is not a wise use of the district's money to keep sinking money into buildings that are inadequate for the district's needs.

All three candidates for school board support the replacement of the building and have written about it in their candidate profiles posted on Patch. Links are below to read what they have to say.

The district's facility report compiled by the planning and building committee can be found here.  It addresses reasons to build versus, renovate existing facilities, buy existing structures, or renting other facilities. Last year, the town's Planning Board, listed the replacement of these offices as "urgent," a label the board rarely issues to town and school-owned buildings in town.

Read more about the building project. Each candidate for school board shared their thoughts on the project in the below candidate profiles:

• Voters to Decide on $1.5M Project for New SAU Offices
• Letter: Vote Yes on School Warrant Article 2