February 2019 Campus Flooding

On Friday, February 1st, a pipe burst in the Chemistry building pouring an estimated 50-75,000 gallons of water in the building. The campus Emergency Operations Committee (EOC) was assembled to help support the department of Chemistry and enact their Continuity of Operations (COOP) plan. Will Lipske represented the Office of the Registrar in the EOC. The flooding affected much of the first floor and basement areas including the spaces used for general chemistry and organic chemistry lectures, discussions and labs. Will and the Curricular Services team were instrumental in supporting the Chemistry department on Friday by immediately jumping into action to relocate 89 Chemistry class sections to other general assignment rooms and other department controlled rooms. The team has continued to relocate Chemistry classes scheduled throughout the week, totaling 518 Chemistry sections relocated across campus. The Chemistry building will continue to be closed for those classes through the start of next week, at the very least. In addition to the significant flooding at the Chemistry building, there was another pipe burst in Vilas hall where many Communication Arts and Theatre and Drama classes are held. Will and the Curricular Services team also have spent a significant amount of time relocating 213 class sections from these departments to other areas of campus this week. Using the Emergency Response Data Visualization tool that was created by RO Data Specialists, RO staff were also able to pull lists of instructors and students affected by these floods in order to contact them via email with where their class sections would be held in the days to come. This continues to be a real team effort to support our campus partners and a testimony to the value of emergency preparedness.