Cathedral expected to reopen today
Sprinkler malfunction causes damage at Pitt
Of all the things that could have interfered with Yulia Houseal’s Russian class Monday at the University of Pittsburgh, flooding seemed as likely as locusts.
After all, it wasn’t raining, and the sun was out.
Besides, her class meets on the Cathedral of Learning’s third floor.
Even so, the odds of a flood — at least in that building — grew exponentially a bit after 9 a.m., when a sprinkler malfunction on her floor sent water cascading down stairs and halls of the landmark 42-story classroom tower. It canceled classes there, forced the building’s evacuation and closed Cathedral offices for the rest of the day.
As crews late Monday assessed damage and began cleaning up, university leaders at least could be thankful for this: The 30 Nationality Rooms on the first and third floors — each a historical and architectural treasure — apparently were not damaged, save water that spread onto the floors.
Call it an act of God. Or simply an act of plumbing. Either way, it was a chaotic start to the workweek for a building at the epicenter of Pitt’s main campus whose cavernous halls made from Indiana limestone hold thousands of occupants, from the chancellor’s office to the Honors College.
“We heard some commotion outside, so my professor closed the door and throughout the class, the water started coming in under the door,” said Ms. Houseal, 18, a freshman from Glen Rock, York County.
“Once class got out, we were walking through the hallway and there was a couple inches of water on the floor,” she explained. “We tried to go through the staircase, and the flood was just pouring down the stairs.”
At about the same time, an unexpected visitor entered the classroom of Jaclyn Kurash, an instructor in German.
“A policeman came into the classroom and just said with very little detail, ‘Class is over. You got to get out of here.’ So the students immediately got up and were kind of panicked by that.
“I didn’t see any water, but I heard from students that whenever the elevators would open, there was so much water coming down it was like a waterfall that people had to walk through to get out of the elevators, so it was really a hazard.”
Pitt stationed campus police officers to keep anyone from entering the building. A crowd of students, faculty and staff waited outside, not far from sidewalks where runoff dried under sunny skies.
The building was expected to reopen at 6 a.m. Tuesday.
At 535 feet, the Gothic Revival Cathedral is the tallest classroom building in the Western Hemisphere. It has about 2,000 rooms and an exterior once known for its streaks of black until a massive cleaning restored the walls in 2007.
Everything about a building like that is big — even the task of evacuating it safely.
Initially, Pitt ordered a partial evacuation from the lower floors where the water was, then ordered everyone out of the skyscraper about noon.
The later alert said classes were canceled until 6 p.m.
Pitt officials did not offer a dollar estimate of damage or say exactly how many rooms were inundated. Pitt spokesman Joe Miksch said he did not know what caused the sprinkler line to break.
Of particular concern were conditions inside the Nationality Rooms, exquisitely detailed classrooms that represent the culture of various ethnic groups that settled in Allegheny County.
For generations, they have attracted both ordinary tourists and others as famous as Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, who visited in 1959.
“As crews assessed the situation, it was determined that the Nationality Rooms have not been damaged,” Pitt tweeted late Monday afternoon.
“They’re fine,” Mr. Miksch said.
Earlier, things seemed more dire inside the building.
When people descended from the upper floors, the damage’s extent became evident, said Rosie Rinella, assistant to the dean of the School of Social Work.
She works on the 21st floor, and said the elevators weren’t working when she left.
“They are taking every precaution,” she said. “There are a lot of things to worry about when there is flooding, and the cleaners I spoke with as I was walking by them on the first floor said the damage is really bad.”
Brian Burka, 27, whose major is Japanese, had a recitation class scheduled in the building at noon, and arrived to find it had been canceled.
“I wish the rest of my classes were here, but my next class is in one of the other buildings,” he said.
Some classes decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and moved outside.
“We can’t afford to lose the class time,” one professor told her class while guiding students to the far corner of the cathedral’s lawn.