Cornellians walking down Ho Plaza late yesterday afternoon may have noticed that it was much more slippery than before; a water pipe that runs between Sage Chapel and the Cornell Store broke yesterday at around 4:15 p.m., flooding the Plaza until Cornell’s grounds crew turned off the valve at 5 p.m.
“They haven’t yet determined the cause [of the break],” said Simeon Moss ’73, press relations office director. “This [occurrence] is not unusual given the circumstances. Cornell has 20 miles worth of water pipes running underneath the campus.”
Moss said that grounds crew will be digging into the sidewalk to repair the break today; until then, the water in Sage Chapel will remain turned off. The grounds crew has also roped off the stairway up to Ho Plaza and the surrounding area as it remains extremely hazardous to pedestrians.
“The pipe that broke was part of the domestic water system,” Moss said, claiming that it was transporting drinking water.