A pipe burst inside Robert Service High School in South Anchorage Monday morning, sending students home for the day.
Anchorage School District spokesperson Heidi Embley got a notice at 8:30 a.m. that a pipe had burst in the band hall area. "It's knocked out water to parts of the building," Embley said, and also forced the school to shut down electricity in the building.
The school's 1,640 students were initially sent outside after an alarm sounded, but were all sent home around 9:30 a.m., while faculty members stayed to supervise students who remained at school. Students are welcome to stay in the building for the remainder of the day, Embley said.
School buses will be running at their normal time of 2 p.m., she said, and after-school activities would not be canceled as most of them take place outside.
Anchorage Water and Wastewater Utility was on the scene on Monday morning. The cause of the burst pipe had not yet been identified, Embley said, but said it may have something to do with construction work taking place at the building. She said a sprinkler pipe had dumped "tens of thousands of gallons" of water onto the floor.
"They're working on it now. It's going to take all night to clean up in there," she said, adding that it was expected the school may be able to reopen Tuesday.
Robert Service High School is a two-story, 305,000-square-foot school located on Anchorage's Lower Hillside. It was built in 1971 and began operating solely as a high school in 1984.