Blessed Savior Catholic South Campus will remain closed Monday

MILWAUKEE (WITI) -- FOX6 News has learned Blessed Savior Catholic School's South Campus on W. Villard will remain closed on Monday, March 10th. This, after crews discovered a burst pipe on Thursday morning, March 6th. The school has been closed since.

Crews were still on scene more than 12 hours after water was discovered gushing out of the front door of the school around 4:30 a.m. Thursday.

"The size of the school, I would say about two, three inches of sand and silt all over the floors at this point. They're getting it cleaned up. It's slowly but surely draining away," Andrew Wyderka with Heiden Plumbing told FOX6 News.

Wyderka spent most of his morning Thursday working inside the building.

"Carpets, libraries -- most of the classrooms were tiled floor.  I don't know how bad the restoration will be, but there's a lot of water extraction," Wyderka said.

Milwaukee Public Works crews weren't able to turn the water off until 7:00 a.m.

Wyderka says a bad joint or pipe likely caused what is known as a "branch leak."

Damage is contained to the pipes on Blessed Savior's property and aside from icy, wet streets, neighbors weren't impacted.

Water somehow got pushed up into the school's sewer system, sending water and more out of the school's drains and urinals.

"What we are going to do is do some testing on the main to find out exactly where the leak is, drill some relief holes in the street and in the terrace area to see if we can get onto the main and do our testing that way," Wyderka said.

Workers say it's an all-too-familiar scene this winter. The call to Blessed Savior's South Campus was Heiden Plumbing's fourth call in just the last day.

"I know for plumbers, at least for southeastern Wisconsin, it's been pretty busy for everyone. We've been doing a lot of main breaks, lot of repairs on laterals, frozen water lines. It's been around the clock," Wyderka said.