Around 5:20 p.m. on September 19, 2024, a student accidentally triggered the sprinkler system in a hallway at The Woodlands High School, leading to a portion of the ceiling above crashing down and flooding the hallway.
The primary story goes that a student was flicking a regular bottle cap while walking down the hallway between the auditorium and the cafeteria, when the bottle cap hit one of the ceiling sprinklers on the ceiling. From there, the fire alarm was triggered, the sprinkler system started spraying water, and a small portion of the tile ceiling broke off and fell to the floor.
“We found out on a Facebook post from The Woodlands Fire Department,” says Mr. Roberts, a Health Science teacher at TWHS whose classroom is located in the hallway where the incident occurred. “They showed a video, and I saw the hallway,” he continues, “and I said, ‘I think that’s my hallway’.” And, when asked about how much water had fallen, he stated that he had heard rumors that it was about 40 minutes of a continuous downpour of water, before it was able to be stopped.
According to the Facebook post made by The Woodlands Fire Department, firefighters arrived on the scene at 5:25 p.m., where they worked to stop the flooding before CISD faculty came and finished cleaning up. “When I got here about 8:20, they were finishing up cleaning the carpets,” says Mr. Roberts, and when asked about the cleaning crew that stayed overtime to help, he stated “I would assume they were here a long time.”
By the time that Mr. Roberts had arrived back at the high school to check up on his classroom, the firefighters had left and he met with some of the maintenance crew that gave him a rundown of what had happened. He was the one who contacted the other teachers who has a classroom in that hallway, Mrs. Miller, and the Health Science overseer, Ms. Baker, about the incident.
The morning of the 20th, there was some residual water and debris damage on the walls and on the floor, but it was safe to walk through and there was barely any water left. However, the art pieces that lined the halls were taken down due to severe water damage.
