Water Leak Floods Mission College Center

A cascade of water swept into the basement of Mission College’s new library and computer center Friday, doing more than $40,000 damage on the floor that houses portions of the building’s 400 computers.

The flood, which began at about 3:15 p.m., was apparently caused by a ruptured water pipe that feeds the building’s fire sprinkler system. The damage was chiefly to carpets and woodwork drenched by about 5 inches of water, said Shari Borchetta , the school’s vice president of administration.

Quick thinking and hundreds of newspapers stacked like sandbags against the advancing tide saved the computer network file servers in the room from being soaked, said John Beck, the computer specialist who manages the system. But the water gushed down the hallway and into other offices, covering the entire bottom floor.

“The volume of water was literally a waterfall,” said Roy Paulson, the college’s facilities manager. “This is the worst disaster that Mission has had--except for the earthquake, of course.”

One Mission police officer on the scene, A.J. Rotella, said the police were hampered because they did not have keys to all the flooded rooms. Rotella said that when officers finally located a key to one room, he found about 18 computers sitting in inches of water.

“I picked up a couple computers and about a gallon of water poured out,” he said.

The $12-million building, a modern stucco and steel edifice three times the size of Mission’s old library, opened in April 1997. The first-floor student computer center and the second-floor library were unharmed.

As a squad of rubber-booted workers hauled electric pumps across the basement hallway, water squishing out of the carpet with each step, staff members said the damage could have been worse.

“We go home Fridays at 4:30,” said Beck. “If it had happened after that, this whole thing would’ve filled up like a swimming pool.”