On October 4th, last week’s half-day, a pipe burst in one of the boy’s bathrooms, causing flooding in the 120s and 220s hallways. In the morning around 9 A.M., a worker was fixing an issue with one of the toilets but one of the pipes burst.
Environmental Science teacher, Mr. Hutcheson, was in his classroom in the 220s and heard the pipe burst. He said the rushing water “sounded like a fire hydrant, it was so loud. The worker twisted a pipe that did not want to be twisted”.
The minute that the water started rushing into the hallway, teachers in the 120s and 220s hallways were notified and told to bring their classes to either the auditorium or the cafeteria. This was all done swiftly and first responders were there in minutes to stop the flooding. At the end of B block, students who had classes in either the 120s or 220s were told to go to the cafeteria or the auditorium, and were to wait for their teachers.
Senior Megan Doyle comments on her experience with the flooding: “I was in the 120s and we were all moved to the auditorium. We didn’t hear the water so we were all confused when our teacher had us pick up all our stuff and rush out of the room. I was happy about the half-half day though!”
During C and D block students waited eagerly to hear more updates on the situations, where many were hoping to get out of school even earlier than 11 A.M due to the half-day already in place. At 10 A.M, Mr. Swanson made the announcement that dismissed all the students, and students were cheering in the auditorium, the cafeteria, and even in classrooms. The teacher’s half-day meetings were not canceled though, just moved to the middle school.
Mr. Swanson wrote a report of everything that happened and sent it out to all HHS students and parents/guardians after the situation was cleared up. It was a very detailed report and reassured many worried students and parents. He expressed his gratitude in the email and over the morning announcements to the students and staff for acting quickly and appropriately “to help maintain the safety and good order of the school throughout an unexpected situation”. He also noted that “we did not plan for that to happen, but it is another reminder of our school community, when emergencies like that happen, we are grateful for such a strong community”.
My experience was that I was in my classroom in the 290s when the pipe burst, and the hallway was beginning to flood. One of the other students in my class was sent a video of the hallway flooding, and at that point, we all knew the rest of the day would not go according to schedule.
Many people in our school community have been making the lighthearted joke of:
Where were you during the infamous flood of October 4th, 2023?
