A fire hydrant near a pedestrian crossing between several buildings and Dexter Lawn was replaced on Nov. 20, nine days after a Cal Poly Police officer hit it while making a U-turn.
On Nov. 11, an officer pulled over for a traffic stop and hit the hydrant, according to university spokesperson Matt Lazier.
“But, in the midst of that, the officer heard gunshots on campus,” Lazier said.
The officer attempted a U-turn to pull away from the stop and in the process, hit and damaged the hydrant according to Lazier. The warning call for gunshots on campus was confirmed to be the same call that resulted in the arrest of two Cal Poly students on weapons charges.
The hydrant had a valve damage which additionally required a water shutoff to a portion of campus. Since then, one building, Engineering West (Bldg 21), saw water damage due to the flooding.
Lazier said “restrooms were closed and water was shut off to fixtures including drinking fountains and hydration stations.”
Additionally, Cotchett Education (Bldg 2), Business (Bldg 3), Architecture & Environmental Design (Bldg 5), Agricultural Sciences (Bldg 11), Engineering East (Bldg 20) and Engineering West (Bldg 21) were among the impacted buildings under this planned water shutoff that ran from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Nov. 20. Facilities said the water service was restored at 9:30 a.m.
The hydrant is on a central part of campus where many students pass during the first 10 minutes of every hour to get to class. Caution tape was strung around the area, blocking a portion of the sidewalk so water could flow out of the erupting hydrant and into a nearby sewage drain.
Lazier said he doesn’t know how much water was released from the hydrant.
The incident occurred the week of the Teamsters Union strike in which “members of the union representing CSU and UC skilled trade workers like electricians, mechanics and facilities workers, picketed from around 6 a.m. to 3 p.m.,” according to past Mustang coverage. Lazier said, “The repairs to the hydrant are complex,” and that an outside contractor repaired the fire hydrant.
“Those repairs are not impacted by recent labor actions on campus,” Lazier said.
Mechanical engineering sophomore Josh Arrich first witnessed the hydrant damage late Saturday night when the incident just occurred and water was spewing profusely.
He wishes the school would have taken action sooner, or at minimum communicated the incident and timeline to the student population.
Psychology junior Kiara Gautam said she was thinking of possible explanations of the hydrant burst as she walked to her classes, adding that she wishes there was more communication on the issue in general. Gautam has a class in Engineering West and said her usual entrance to the building was closed off due to the damage.
“I take comfort in knowing there is a sewage drain next to it so that’s a better feeling,” Gautam said. “But it feels a little wasteful because everyone in California has been trying to conserve water and seeing large amounts of water just gush out like that was an interesting feeling.”
Arrich and Gautam have sympathy for those working on the repair yet wonder if information about related damages could be better communicated in the future.
“I’m sure they have a reason for why they weren’t doing anything but for how long it was spewing out water I feel like they could have found a quicker way to handle it,” Arrich said.
Update: On Nov.28 at 5:21 p.m., this story was updated to correctly embed the data visualization and change the headline from “over a week” to “more than a week” for clarification.