2008 Woodie Awards
MLC Night classes relocated; most Friday classes canceled
Fire may prompt early move into new building.
By Jason B. Hogan
Issue date: 6/30/08 Section: News
Originally published: 9/4/08 at 5:05 PM CSTLast update: 9/17/08 at 6:20 PM CST
| |
|
Facilities manager David Ortega and district safety officer Roy Brown have worked almost around the clock along with a contracted company, Blackmon Mooring, to pump the building free of water that flooded from the fifth floor down to the basement level.
Late Thursday, interim Executive Vice President Jessica Howard distributed by e-mail a list of reassignments for weekend classes and reported all but two Friday classes scheduled for Moody were canceled.
Earlier in the day, officials explored moving classes into at least one of the campus's new buildings.
The new classroom building and nursing and allied health center were originally slated to open this fall, but construction delays postponed opening to the spring semester.
President Robert Zeigler said his office has been working on a place to put the classes Friday. The new academic building is just a possibility, right now, Zeigler said. "I wouldn't say it's a done deal."
Ortega said the foreign languages and English as a second language department was already slated to move into the new classroom building.
"We're trying to get into the academic building by tomorrow," Ortega said. "We have six (classrooms) right now."
The fire started in Room 577 of Moody, the office of Professors Carol Swanson and Tom Manzo. The offices are all in the same section of the building.
"There is damage all up and down those offices. Probably about seven offices are damaged," Ortega said.
Ortega said the building will be closed Friday also. As of Thursday afternoon, facilities personnel and the contractors were in the final stage of cleanup.
A damage assessment for Moody will not be available for a couple of weeks, Ortega said.
The building has been "'wet-vacced.' We're still in the process of drying the building out with humidifiers and a wipe down with smoke detectors," Ortega said.
Insurance adjusters are investigating. "They don't like us to touch those areas ... until they say 'this is the way we want it done," Ortega said.
Technicians also were assessing elevators and escalators flooded by the sprinkler system.
For 30 minutes, sprinklers sprayed water before the San Antonio Fire Department turned it off in the pump room, Ortega said.
"If you know how the sprinkler system works, it's got a soldered piece," Ortega said. "And once that piece is melted, it will release a stream until it is manually shutdown. And with the fire department not knowing the whole system, it did take them a while to locate the pump room."
The college Web site has a downloadable PDF of new classroom assignments for Thursday evening classes.
Zeigler said make-ups for missed class sessions are left up to the discretion of instructors. "They might do an outside assignment," he said.
This is an open forum for the readers of TheRanger.org. Abusive, inflammatory, slanderous, obscene and libelous language will not be tolerated. Please be considerate of other readers when posting comments. This is not the place for personal attacks. The staff of The Ranger.org reserves the right to deny publication of any posts. The comments posted here do not reflect the opinions of The Ranger staff, San Antonio College or the Alamo Community College District.
Be the first to comment on this story