(SBA) Sergeant Bluff — On October 24, the Sergeant Bluff-Luton Primary School experienced flooding in its boiler room after a failure in the building’s HVAC system caused a leak that released both water and chemical fluids, creating potential hazards within the facility.
Superintendent Chad Janzen said the incident highlights the need for a new primary school building — one of the main goals behind the district’s current bond proposal.
“The maintenance issue this past Friday is a great example of why we’re asking for a bond to build a new primary building,” Janzen said. “There was a leak in the boiler room, and about 30 gallons of water and HVAC fluid spilled onto the floor.”
When maintenance crews called in specialists to address the issue, they discovered that the floor drains were unusable. “The specialists could only get the snake 18 inches into one drain and three feet into the other,” Janzen explained. “The drains are completely collapsed, and our maintenance staff had to use shop vacs to collect the fluid.”
Janzen said the incident underscores the building’s aging infrastructure. “This is an example of an issue in the primary building that simply can’t be fixed,” he said. “If something like this happens over a weekend, that fluid could end up all over the building.”
