The Chambers Hall offices experienced flooding from the clogged sewage pipes underneath campus.
The sewage pipes, which collect waste from all over campus, run throughout parts of ACU. The sewage pipe underneath Chambers became clogged and caused the basement offices in the building to flood on Tuesday.
Built in 1929, Chambers is one of the buildings on the current campus. It is slated to be demolished in the next few years and turned into the Halbert-Walling Research Center as part of the $30 million science construction project.
Dr. Cole Bennett, chair of the Department of Language and Literature, said it was a hectic morning for those who work there.
“My office is located in the basement, but I was upstairs when the flooding started to take place,” Bennett said. “Suddenly, people started fleeing upstairs where I was, saying that the basement offices were flooding.”
Bennett said facilities management was contacted immediately after the flooding started and sent a team of plumbers to address the problem.
“The plumbers rushed to the scene immediately and began to work on the problem,” Bennett said. “They explained that the sewage pipes had become clogged which caused all the waste to come up through the drains and even toilets in the Chambers basement.”
Bennett said actual sewage had flooded Chambers but no major damage was evident in the aftermath.
“There was minimal damage but maximum annoyance,” Bennett said. “The carpets and the walls are definitely the most damaged and only about half the offices in the basement had significant amounts of flooding.”
Bennett said WFF Custodial Services, ACU’s janitorial service provider, arrived promptly after the incident.
“I was really impressed with how fast they arrived on the scene to service and clean the Chambers basement,” Bennett said. “They contributed so much with those vacuums that sucked up the sewage water.”
Darren Campbell, senior psychology major from Allen, said that he noticed commotion from Chambers that morning.
“I saw trucks and plumbers walking towards Chambers Hall, and immediately thought to myself, it was a bit unusual to see more than one plumber on a single job,” Campbell said.
