Water Main Break Floods Chapel Basement

Water main break in front of the chapel leads to extensive damage to chapel basement.

A water main break in front of the chapel required moving the Palm Sunday Mass to the Atrium of the DJ Sokol School Building. The students also received an unexpected 3 day weekend as classes for Monday were cancelled. Update: Classes are cancelled for Tuesday & Wednesday.  School will resume after Easter Break.

The first sign of an issue was brought to the attention of maintenance employee Russ Brester who received an alert on his phone in the predawn hours. The alert indicated that the well house was pumping an excessive amount of water from both wells.   He drove to The Mount from his home in Arlington, Nebraska.  In a search of the campus he discovered that the Crypt (chapel basement) was flooded.  Companies were contacted immediately to pump the water out of the crypt and find the break.   With twilight developing, the first indicator of where the break occurred was when he noticed that the sign for the DJ Sokol Chapel was sinking into the ground.

After the water receded in the crypt the extent of the damage became clear. Not only was the Drama Department storage, stage set, and chapel sacristy been flooded with 20″ of water, but the floor of the crypt had risen in the middle and buckled. The main break of the floor is currently buried under 5 inches of mud in the middle of the room where the water and mud bubbled up.  The extent of the heaving up of the floor is significant.

The water main has been repaired and water turn back on.  For now drinking water will need to be bottled.  It will take a couple of water samples in the next few days to get clearance to drink the water.

Photo#1 : visible crack in floor leading toward the primary fissure covered in mud (photo #2). Photo #3 20″ high watermark.