During the first week of classes, a water main broke at 11:50 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 24. and left a section of Rockville campus closed on Friday, Jan. 25. Many students were notified about the closure via MC Alert.

The Counseling and Advising, Music, South Campus Instruction Building, Parilla Performing Arts Center and Art buildings were closed. Parking lot 11 was also closed.

Throughout the day, many students saw an overflow of water throughout lot 11, which caused the MC shuttle stop to relocate to the RideOn bus stop area.

Marcus Rosano, media relations director, believes that the water pipe broke due to “temperature fluctuation.” At 4:42 p.m., Public Safety at MC sent out an email stating that the buildings that were closed on Friday would be open on Saturday, Jan. 26 but parking lot 11 would remain closed.

James Gillis, the plant maintenance and operations manager at the Rockville campus, evaluated the main pipes and concluded it must have burst due to its age, Rosano said. The pipe has been there since the Rockville campus opened in 1965.

Water leaks and pipe breakage can happen at anytime but are more likely when there is a sudden drop in temperature. Rosano states that the specific pipe that broke was “10 feet down the pavement!” and the ground above this pipe froze which in turn caused the exterior of the pipe to stress more quickly.

The facilities crew at MC Rockville Campus took immediate action to fix the water break as soon as possible so that this issue would not permanently harm the side of campus that was mainly affected. Lot 11 was reopened on Monday, Jan. 28 after the pipe was completely fixed.