Flooding at Wellington Secondary School has proved costly for Nanaimo school district.
Students fooling around at lunchtime last week accidentally broke a sprinkler head on the upper floor of the 'A' wing, which started to gush water and activated the school's fire alarm system.
The school was evacuated and the sprinkler left on until firefighters cleared the building of any fire. During that time, the district estimates more than 3,300 litres of water soaked the upper and lower floors around the sprinkler.
Much of the water leaked from the upper floor to the lower floor and upstairs was reopened the next day, but the lower floor, which has six classrooms, was closed for a week while restoration work occurred.
Furniture and walls needed to be dried out and lockers were pulled away from the walls to allow the walls to dry.
Donna Reimer, school district spokeswoman, said she doesn't know what the total cost of the cleanup is yet, but it will cost the district $10,000, which is the insurance deposit.
"In a budget the size of ours, it's not a huge amount to cover," she said. "It's money we'd rather not have to spend."
As of Tuesday (Jan. 24), everything should be business as usual at Wellington, Reimer added.