Plumbing issues prevailed with a water main break last Tuesday in front of North Bond Hall.
Following the break, the Department of Public Safety responded and barricaded the surrounding area.
The incident resulted in the Allied Health Sciences building, the College of Pharmacy building and the Michigan College of Optometry building going without water for a day.
Initially, MCO expected to have water, but water lines shut off halfway through Wednesday as repairs were made to the water main.
This incident was the latest addition to a saga of plumbing issues Ferris has experienced over the last several months, including the November flooding of Brophy Hall.
Director of Facilities Management Operations Tom Potrykus stated that the cause of the main break likely involves the age of the plumbing.
“It is not weather-related,” Potrykus said. “It is the age of the water main, and it could be original. There are sections that have been updated, but the whole thing has not been updated.”
Despite the age of the plumbing likely being the cause, it is unknown exactly how old the water main was.
Potrykus further explained that following the break, water was shut off at 6:30 a.m. on Wednesday and turned back on by 3 p.m. Students living in the dorm hall were not affected.
He also specified that the water main belonged to Ferris, not the city of Big Rapids.
Despite the water main being repaired on the same day, several classes and clinics were affected by the lack of water.
Master of business administration student Alexis Stump, who works full-time in the Allied Health Sciences building, elaborated on the effects of no water on classes.
“Dental hygiene could not really do anything at all yesterday,” Stump said. “Water is obviously very important for them to do all their treatments, so they had to deal with that.”
Stump also mentioned that College of Pharmacy Building classes moved to the Michigan College of Optometry building before the water was shut off. She also stated that despite receiving several updates throughout the day, employees and students were unaware of the water shut-off at MCO until shortly before it happened.
Employees of the Allied Health Sciences building were provided the option to work from home due to the bathrooms being out of order for most of the day.
Stump stated that the lack of water in the building presented a major inconvenience for students and faculty.
“Nobody was prepared or expecting it,” Stump said. “These programs are very intensive. You have to come to class, you just don’t have a choice. So, everyone was like, ‘What do we do? Where do we go?’”
Stump further expressed hope that this event would make the university consider updating plumbing around campus.
First-year dental hygiene student Mollie Weeks explained that classes were held over Zoom, but the water main break could have posed problems for dental hygiene courses.
“Luckily, it wasn’t a clinic day for us, so we just had classes on Zoom,” Weeks said. “At first, I would have been like ‘Oh yeah, no clinic,’ but after a while, I would have wished I had a clinic that day because now we’re missing stuff, and having less time to complete things.”
Weeks also stated that clinic classes generally cannot be made up, meaning that students would be required to know that material and fulfill a competency requirement without the hands-on practice.
Ferris has not addressed whether there are plans to update plumbing or prevent future incidents such as this from occurring again.