CREDIT: DOUG CALDER
The ceiling tiles above Subway in Junction were removed in order to fix a burst pipe that led to a minor flood.

On Feb. 15 a video circulated online of a minor flooding in Junction by Subway in D building. Though the water was quickly mopped up and the ceiling tiles fixed, the incident poses an interesting question: are the buildings at Fanshawe falling apart at the seams?

Some of the buildings at Fanshawe are quite old. The oldest buildings are A, B and C, which were built in 1962 when the Ontario Vocational Centre (OVC) was founded; the OVC was renamed Fanshawe College in 1967.

D building, which connected the original three buildings together, was added in the early ‘70s, making the building where the flooding occurred around 45-years-old.

According to Doug Calder, the manager of maintenance services and utilities at Fanshawe, the flooding occurred because of a pipe that burst due to the cold temperatures and heavy snowfall that occurred the weekend before.

A supply fan on the roof in that area shut down on the Thursday before the accident. The combination of the heavy snow and cold temperatures over the long weekend created the perfect environment for a pipe to burst as the snow insulated the roof and kept it cold.

“The pipe probably froze between Thursday and Sunday when we had minus 20 degree temperatures and then on Monday when it warmed up enough, the stress crack in the elbow of the pipe let go under pressure and then caused the water leak,” Calder said.

Calder said this was a fairly major accident for the school.

“This was probably the worst [accident] I have seen here at Fanshawe in quite a while,” he said. Calder has been working at Fanshawe for 27 years, two and a half of those spent in his current position.

Calder added that due to the fact that the accident occurred on a holiday it took much longer than expected to fix the pipe and get the area cleaned up, as many workers had to be called in from their day off.

“If it had happened on a normal Monday we probably would have had other situations with the water damage occurring but we probably would have been able to get a response from staff here quicker,” Calder said.

The school was closed on the day of the accident because of Family Day. A student was on campus when the accident happened and filmed the flooding, even capturing a ceiling tile falling to the ground due to the weight of the water. The video was uploaded to Facebook, and the original video was viewed over 340,000 times.

Many of the comments on the video were hoping school would be closed the next day, but Calder said the water was cleaned up and the pipe was fixed by 9 p.m. that day.

“This is not an uncommon occurrence to happen, it was probably just the most dramatic in regards to being broadcast on social media,” Calder said.

Calder emphasized that this is an unpredictable incident and in no way means that this is evidence of structural or design problems with Fanshawe’s infrastructure.

This was definitely a unique situation for Fanshawe and is one that is unlikely to happen again.

“[Cold weather] takes a toll on our systems that are above in concealed ceiling spaces. It’s not a predictable situation,” Calder said.

None of the fast-food restaurants in Junction suffered a financial loss because of the incident.