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Miami Township Trustees Meeting – Transcription January 5, 2009 Preface This document is a transcription of January 5, 2009, Miami Township Trustees Meeting that was shown on the public access cable television channel in Yellow Springs. The transcript deals with the portion of the meeting in which Miami Township Fire-Rescue Chief Colin Altman reported on the water damage at Antioch College. Chief Altman recently reviewed this transcript and his unedited comments about statements made at the meeting are included as footnotes in the transcript. These footnotes should be considered an essential part of the record. Chief Altman also stated, “that the University has been very cooperative in dealing with us and fire safety matters on campus.” All other footnotes not attributed to Chief Altman were made by The Antioch Papers. Introduction The written Minutes for the January 5, 2009 meeting state the following: The meeting was called to order at 7:00 p.m. by President [Chris] Mucher. Trustees [Mark] Crockett and [Lamar] Spracklen were present. Fire Chief [Colin] Altman, Road Superintendent [John] Finn, Zoning Inspector [Richard] Zopf and Fiscal Officer [Margaret] Silliman were also present. Audience members included Zoning Commission member John Struewing and Township resident Byron Arnett (1). The section of the written Minutes about the water damage at Antioch College state the following: The sprinkler system at Antioch College’s South Hall and Theatre Building froze. Serious damage occurred (1). In the transcript persons other than Chief Altman are identified as “Other Voice.” Transcript Altman: Yeah, long day (2). So, and that’s it for us, I think. Yeah, the only other big thing – we’ve been working with the University on, um, they had a bunch of sprinkler pipes freeze around Christmas time —— footnotes —— (1) Minutes, Miami Township Trustees, January 5, 2009. http://theantiochpapers.org/file_download/210/fl_003.pdf Note – This document was retrieved as a cached document from Google. (2) On 2-11-09 Chief Altman stated, “It should be noted that this meeting was held at the end of a day in which I’d been up since 4:30 am, at a house fire in which one of our firefighters suffered a near fatal accident. I wasn’t in the best frame of mind!” ——————–
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Altman (continued): in some of the buildings. So we’re working with them on getting their systems restored as soon as possible and stuff like that. Other Voice: These were these new special dry valve whatever pipe deals? Altman: No. Well, the two actually that they converted to drypipe were fine, in West Hall and Spalt. They did what they’re supposed to, which is not freeze. South Hall froze on the fourth floor so unfortunately the water went (3) – Other Voice: All the way through – Altman: All the way through Other Voice: Oh. and I don’t know how much… it did a lot of damage. Other Voice: Really. Altman: it did a lot of damage in there, unfortunately. Apparently, I guess the thought was that the Theater had a dry system and surprise, it does not. It has a wet system. So a pipe burst in there and I think Louise Smith had that letter in the paper last week and (4) – Other Voice: She thought it was the roof. Altman: Yeah, I think it was, um, more than a roof leak. Other Voice: Was that the leak that the (unintelligible) was looking for? Other Voice: I don’t know. Altman: I don’t know. Other Voice: A lot of water can flow. Altman: The amount of water coming out of that South Hall system was mind-boggling. —— footnotes —— (3) On 2-11-09 Chief Altman stated, “At the time, the thought was that the pipe had frozen in South causing the leak. Further investigation revealed that freezing was not the cause; a pipe hanger had broken loose, causing the pipe to drop and break, allowing the compressed are inside to exhaust, and water to fill the pipe.” (4) On 2-11-09 Chief Altman stated, “Again, at the time of this meeting, I had been told that the Theatre had flooded due to a broken sprinkler pipe. I’ve since been told that this was in fact due to a large roof leak, in accordance with Louise Smith’s letter.” —————-
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Other Voice: They were losing a hundred fifty thousand gallons a day (5). Other Voice: Wow. Altman: Oh Jesus, ok. Oh wow. Other Voice: Yeah, you wouldn’t see it in South Hall until it started to come out from underneath the door on the first floor. Altman: South Hall we knew pretty quickly ’cause the alarm activated. Other Voice: Oh ok. That’s a new enough system. Altman: The Theater building there’s no alarm for it other than a gong, a manual gong that works and if no one’s around to hear it… you know, obviously no one heard it. But, South Hall we pulled up and you know Grote was there and he said, “hey, come here.” At the end of the building water was shooting out the windows of the fourth floor. Other Voice: Oh god. Altman: So we knew that something wasn’t right. Other Voice: So that was South Hall and the Theater building. What about that Main Building… Altman: Main Building had a valve–it is a dry system, but apparently the valve just leaked. It didn’t cause a lot of damage from what I understand (unintelligible), just repair a valve and drain it so. So, uh, you know and then with Milt Thompson who had been handling all that stuff for the University, Vice President something or other, has left and got a job at Middletown City Schools… you know good deal for him. Um, so they’re not replacing him and the Vice Chancellor in charge of the facilities is in Minnesota until next week, so it’s very typical Antioch trying to get this stuff worked out. So, we’ll see what happens. Definitely a shame though, South Hall was a nice building. Other Voice: Yeah, it was. Altman: Anyway, there’s drywall collapsed and all this kind of stuff so (6) – Other Voice: Oh my god. —— footnotes —— (5) 150,000 gallons a day = 104 gallons per minute. In general terms a 2″ water pipe flowing freely would release about this much water. The source of this water leak was not identified in the meeting. The person reporting this may be referring to an incident that took place several years ago. (6) On 2-11-09 Chief Altman stated, “There were two sections of dry wall collapsed on the fourth and third floors due to water weight. There appeared to be no structural damage at all.” —————-
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Other Voice: I’m sure there’s a very big mess. Altman: Yeah, oh yeah. Other Voice: But if they don’t dry out the building, it’s just going to keep on going. Altman: Yeah. Yeah, and we had an alarm problem at the Union building as well (7). There’s no sprinkler system there but with the temperature fluctuations, there’s so much condensation on the inside of those buildings, those poor smoke detectors, which, lord knows had a lot of jobs to do when the college was open, have been shorting because of all the humidity in there. So it’s a… Other Voice: That’s a lot of humidity to short out. Altman: Yeah and the detectors were already on their last leg anyway after years of cigarette smoke and… (8) – Other Voice: But when we had that real hot day, that just made everything that was cold just condensation, so insides of those buildings were probably just terrible. Altman: Yeah, there’s no air circulation because all the HVAC’s shut down and all that kind of stuff, so you know, I mean they’ve addressed it as best they can and they were responsive to us and maintenance guys Ronnie and Casey come out for everything and helped but, yeah, we’ll see. And that’s it. The Antioch Papers, 2-18-09 —— footnotes —— (7) On 2-11-09 Chief Altman stated, “As a point of info, the sprinkler system in the Union consists of 1 sprinkler head located in a closet. It was drained of water in the Fall per a variance issued by me.” (8) On 2-11-09 Chief Altman stated, “For years, we responded to an average of 60 fire alarms per year at the Union Building, primarily due to smoking materials activating the alarm.” —————-
