On Saturday, Jan. 31, the Recreation and Wellness Center on the Mount Carmel Campus was shut down due to a water leak caused by a faulty sprinkler head.
“The University was alerted to a fire alarm going off in RWA,” Keith Woodward, associate vice president for facilities operations, wrote in an email to The Chronicle. “Water was coming into RWA-213. Facilities and Public Safety acted quickly and our staff were able to shut off the water to the fire sprinkler head that had let loose and then we connected with our local contractor to put a new sprinkler head in place.”
The fire alarm went off at approximately 10 a.m. Students and staff inside the building at the time were evacuated, and the building was fully closed within the hour. An email was sent to students notifying them of the closure.
“Public Safety and Facilities acted quickly and within 2 hours on Saturday the RecWell was back open after the initial sprinkler fail,” David Hall, director of Recreation and Wellness, wrote in an email to The Chronicle.
An update email was sent to students informing them that the RecWell facilities had been reopened but advised that the women’s locker room would be closed until further notice.
The water leak in RWA-213 — the women’s locker room — forced its closure for an extended period of time. Some students who entered the gym after the building reopened were inconvenienced because they were unable to use the locker room. Unable to use the lockers to store their belongings, students left their things in the hallway outside the locker room instead.
“The women’s locker room was reopened within 24 hours, although patrons had access to bathroom stalls even prior to that,” Hall wrote.
No additional email was sent to notify students that the locker room had reopened. A new sprinkler head was installed and no further issues have been reported.
