The accident happened around 10 a.m., forcing the main water line to the building to be shut off, stopping the soda and juice machines and the dishwasher and leaving students using paper plates and buying bottled drinks for the next few hours. The bathrooms were also closed.
Dartmouth Dining Services butcher Robert Huntley saw the Facilities Operations & Management worker screwing wood into the wall to go behind the white plastic covering, which was being installed to cover up harder-to-clean tile in the butcher's room.
"He was going through the corner and said, 'It's amazing I haven't hit anything yet,'" Huntley said.
But then he did hit something -- a four-inch water pipe above the door.
"It was like a waterfall," DDS Associate Director David Newlove said. "It was coming out of the fixtures, it was coming out of the wall, everything."
As the water spilled onto the floor and into a light fixture in the ceiling, someone brought a dumpster to catch the water. Facility, Operations and Management workers shut the water off and broke a hole in the wall to get to the pipe and repair it.
The incident occurred a few feet away from an electrical switchbox.
Nearby at The Blend, student workers purchased bottled water and juice from Topside convenience store to continue to serve smoothies to customers in the hot weather.
"It just made it extremely difficult plus we were so busy," The Blend employee Tamara Battle '07 said.
Leaks in the building are not uncommon, but the amount of water lost in this accident is extreme, according to Food Court Manager Larry James.
"We have floods downstairs and that's about it and it usually happens at nighttime," James said. "Sometimes around 10 or 11 at night the security guards will notice there's a leak someplace."
According to Newlove, grill service was unaffected because of a separate steam line from the power plant.
