Flooding Shortens School Day

Red Bluff Union High School students were released from school early Monday after a broken water main flooded part of the campus and water was shut off.

Parents were notified of the school closure through the district's automated phone system and students were excused around 9:30 a.m.

School will resume today.

Director of Operations Joe Kittle said when he got to work Monday morning he saw water boiling out near the foot of a tree. Water flooded an area that included some picnic tables.

He estimates the water main broke some time Sunday night and he discovered it around 5:30 a.m., Monday.

A staff member who had performed a campus check around 9:30 p.m., Sunday did not see any problems at that time, Kittle said.

After the flooding was minimized, maintenance staff discovered the broken pipes were well beneath the concrete.

No suspicious activity is suspected.

The age of the infrastructure combined with the cold weather may have caused the rupture.

We're dealing with 100-yearold infrastructure here, Kittle said.

This is a very old school.

Freezing temperatures from last week may have caused water to back up and it just took this long for the water to move through, he said.

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