Early in the morning on Feb 2., a pipe burst on the lower level of the Peterson Fine Arts building, causing students to evacuate in the middle of class. 

David Bohnert, the dean of the School of Arts and Humanities, was in the building when the pipes burst, and he was able to give more insight to the situation. 

“My understanding from initial conversations is that there was a valve that failed on the lower level of Peterson,” Bohnert said. “An employee shut off the valve to work on the HVAC system, but then discovered the valve was faulty as it began spraying. This triggered the fire alarm sensor.”  

WSC campus security arrived on the scene after a few minutes and were able to clear the fire alarm and clean up the area of the building that was affected, which was on the basement level near the black box theatre. 

“I was in the rafters of Ramsey when the alarm went off,” student Reily Vrbka said. “There’s only two ladders down, and there was probably, like, 15 of us… the slowest evacuation humanly possible.” 

There are currently no known plans on how the issue with the pipes will be fixed. With rehearsals for this semester’s play, “Mother Courage and Her Children,” set to begin soon, some students expressed concern. It is not known exactly how much damage was actually caused, however. Most classes in the building were able to resume after a brief disturbance.  

“I believe it was a mild interruption,” Bohnert said. “Fortunately, it was not terribly cold outside. Everyone seemed to be in very good spirits.”