Scranton City Hall pipes burst during frigid February

March 08--In Scranton, when it rains, it does indeed pour.

Two days after the city's major trunk water main on River Street broke and shut off water to thousands, a pipe inside City Hall burst overnight Jan. 31 into Feb. 1. Water flooded a second-floor storage room and leaked into the Treasury Department on the first floor and the basement, said Patrick Hinton, the city's director of the Department of Licensing, Inspections and Permits.

The burst pipe, which was discovered the morning of Feb. 1 by a maintenance worker, caused significant damage, said Mr. Hinton, who oversees the city's buildings. Treasury employees and operations had to be moved upstairs to the vacant room on the second floor of City Hall, to make way for repairs downstairs. The repairs are not complete, and the treasurer's office has remained displaced for the past five weeks.

"It was unbelievable," Mr. Hinton said of the leak. "In the room it (the pipe) burst, there was 5 to 6 inches of water. The adjoining room looked like a steam room."

One floor below, city Treasurer Wayne Beck's office in the front corner of the Treasury Department bore the brunt of damage on that level, though the entire office had a musty, mildewy smell, Mr. Hinton said.

Another pipe in a different section of the second floor of City Hall burst overnight Feb. 18 into Feb. 19, Mr. Hinton said. This pipe also ruptured in a storage room, at the opposite end of the building where the first leak occurred. This second leak drained into the back of Mayor Bill Courtright's office on the first floor and the Civil War museum in the basement, where some memorabilia was affected, Mr. Hinton said. Mr. Courtright discovered this leak when he arrived at the office Feb. 19, smelled a musty odor and saw the damage, he said.

Both pipes that burst were connected to heating/cooling units installed about a decade ago along exterior walls and ruptured from freezing and thawing, Mr. Hinton said.

"We believe they weren't properly insulated," he said.

The city also is reviewing the rest of the heating/cooling system's pipes to ensure they are insulated.

Repairs for both could cost a total of about $90,000, Mr. Hinton said. The city has insurance, but the city will have to pay a deductible of the first $25,000, he said.

City Hall, built in 1888 and listed in 1981 on the National Register of Historic Places, needs a good bit of maintenance, as do other city buildings, Mr. Hinton said.

"We've been having heating problems at firehouses, the DPW, the police station. It seems like an ongoing problem since we got here," upon Mr. Courtright's inauguration on Jan. 6.

Contact the writer: [email protected], @jlockwoodTT on Twitter

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