Broken pipe floods facility

The flood did not damage the clients' products or the facility's equipment.
By WILLIAM K. ALCORN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
BOARDMAN -- Clients were due back to work as soon as today at Mahoning County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities' Meshel sheltered workshop after a broken water pipe flooded the facility over the weekend.
Larry Duck, MRDD superintendent, said a 3-inch pipe in the ceiling of the women's public restroom near the front of the facility at 160 Marwood Circle burst sometime after the workshop was closed at 4:30 p.m. Friday.
The Meshel workshop and others are operated for MRDD by the Mahoning Adult Services Corp.
Duck said the flooding was discovered at 6 a.m. Tuesday by custodians when they came to work and found water flowing out the front door. Clients stayed at their residences Tuesday and Wednesday while staff cleaned up the mess.
Damage was limited to the restroom, where the water came through the ceiling, and the floor, which had about two inches of water on it. Luckily, Duck said, none of the products the clients were working on, nor the facility's electronic or mechanical equipment, all of which were up off the floor, were damaged.
The floor in the workshop is concrete and was easily cleaned up.
However, Duck said the offices at the front of the 30,000-square-foot building, which faces Market Street, suffered more damage because there are tile and carpet on the floors there.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the dollar amount of damage was not determined. Duck said that likely will wait until all the areas dry and the insurance company can determine what it will take to make repairs. Duck estimated it would be several weeks before the facility is completely back to normal.