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Alyson Kuennen

Cars leave the parking lot as their school day ends.

Around 2:30 p.m., the backlot of West began flooding, triggered from a mishap during the new gym construction.

“We were boring a new underground power line for the new [gym] addition, and during that it must have hit the water main, so we had to shut the water off,” said Iowa City Community School District Project Manager Mike Leyden.

The crew began cleanup this afternoon and will finish by tonight’s football game at 7 p.m. Additional cement repairs are aimed to be done within the next day.

As of now, the water in the school is shut off, but it is not permanent.

“There is a loop water line for the building, so we can shut off this line and still have water access in the building, but until we shut off these areas [the water inside is off]. We are working on that now, and we will redirect the water for the building from the other end,” Leyden said.

Students had mixed reactions to the event. Some, like Patrick Taylor ’20, said that the event didn’t affect him.

“It looks pretty bad out there, and it also looks like it’s creating more of a traffic jam than usual. But I walk home, [so it’s like] whatever,” Taylor said.

Others, like Katelyn Miller ’19, Hannah Harney ’19, and Aubree Klink ’19, said that the incident caused many worries.

“[I was] worried that my car was flooded,” Miller said. “[I was] worried that they weren’t going to let me leave,” Klink said.

By 4:30 p.m. the backlot was clear of students and construction workers had stopped the flooding.

Read about how the construction has affected other areas of the school here. 

Updated at 5:29 p.m.

Additional reporting by Fatima Kammona.