By Connor Adams Sheets
The girls of St. Agnes Academic High School in Whitestone got an unexpected day off from class Monday when they learned their school was forced to close after a water service pipe broke.
The pipe, which connects the all-female Catholic school’s plumbing system to a water main along 124th Street, was reported broken to the city at about 6:30 a.m. Monday, according to a Department of Environmental Protection worker at the scene that afternoon.
A school employee contacted the city after finding water pouring into its basement, according to another DEP worker. A St. Agnes administrator at the school Monday afternoon declined to comment on the situation.
Several DEP workers had cut a wide hole in the pavement in front of the school’s entrance at 13-20 124th St. by 11 a.m. Monday, and one of them was working to close the valve that connected the service to the main, according to another worker. A first valve was closed through a sidewalk access earlier that morning, and a DEP truck, a number of FDNY vehicles and a bulldozer were on the scene that afternoon.
A DEP worker said the onus was on the school to address any plumbing issues in the building, while the city would take care of any problems with the main and service pipes.
“[The school can reopen] as fast as they can get a plumber out here to fix it,” he predicted. “Could be today, could be tomorrow.”
Isabella Kadir, a resident of nearby 125th Street, said her water had been affected Monday, though the DEP workers could not confirm whether or not it was a result of the break, which Kadir said was the second in the neighborhood in two weeks.
“I went to make my tea this morning and the water’s light brown. It still is,” she said. “It’s horrible.”
The water in the toilets of the boy’s bathroom near the auditorium at St. Fidelis School across 14th Avenue from St. Agnes was also brown Monday afternoon, according to the school’s principal, Diana Sylvestri.
Reach reporter Connor Adams Sheets by e-mail at csheets@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4538.
