Classes on the first and second floors at the Tolley Administration Building have been relocated until further notice after a water main break Monday morning damaged the floors.

During repairs to a sprinkler system, a fixture on the line broke, causing water damage to a basement classroom and offices, said Sara Miller, Syracuse University spokeswoman, in e-mail.

The university is in the process of cleaning and restoring the damaged areas, and classes and offices are moved to other campus locations until Tolley is restored to its original condition, Miller said. She said much of the class and office area of Tolley went unaffected.

There was a leaky pipe running through a second floor office that was being repaired when it broke around 9 a.m., said Gerald Greenberg, associate dean of curriculum, instruction and programs in the College of Arts and Sciences. Greenberg oversees the building’s conditions and operations. He said he is not sure when the damaged pipe was originally reported to be fixed.

‘It literally burst,’ Greenberg said. ‘Water just shot out all over the place.’

The second floor flooded, and water soaked down into the first floor, Greenberg said.

Greenberg described areas in Tolley to be ‘totally deluged’ with water. He said the water damaged two faculty offices and one classroom in particular. Books and files were totally soaked in a first and a second floor office, he said, and a teacher working station with computer equipment on the first floor was probably ruined.

Some ceiling panels were ‘totally destroyed,’ drywall was torn up and the carpet was wet, Greenberg said. Staff from the risk management and physical plant departments cared for the damage to the building, drying carpet and wiping surfaces. Greenberg said staff from the library’s book preservation department removed the files and books from the offices.

No one was injured, Greenberg said.

SU had no cost estimates for the repairs to Tolley as of Monday afternoon, said Allan Breese, director of Physical Plant and Business and Facilities Maintenance Services. The physical plant department will handle the clean up and repairs to Tolley, he said.

Signs at the front of Tolley announced the break and listed classes on the first and second floors that would be rescheduled starting at 9:30 a.m. and going for the rest of the day. Classes were moved to the Life Sciences Complex and Crouse-Hinds Hall. 

Greenberg said he hopes classes will return to Tolley on Wednesday.

‘Fortunately, we’re near the end of the semester,’ Greenberg said.

The maintenance staff was still cleaning late Monday afternoon when Paul Wiele, a senior psychology major, was trying to get to his 3:45 p.m. linguistics class normally held on the first floor of Tolley. Wiele did not notice the signs on the outside doors of Tolley and walked right in.

‘I had no idea what happened,’ Wiele said.

Wiele was late to his class that had been moved to the Life Sciences Complex. He said he was not upset the university had not more directly alerted students because there was no way for the administration to have been prepared for a water main break.

A previous version of this article appeared on dailyorange.com on Nov. 15.

dkmcbrid@syr.edu

Published on November 15, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Contact Dara: dkmcbrid@syr.edu | @daramcbride