Inmates at a juvenile detention center in Durango have been relocated to Pueblo and Grand Junction after a sprinkler broke Sunday, flooding much of the building.
The break resulted in up to 3 inches of water in 50 percent of building, said Elizabeth Owens, spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Human Services, which owns the Robert E. DeNier Youth Services Center.
Durango Fire Protection District declared the building unoccupiable, largely because the sprinkler system is inoperable, said Fire Marshal Karola Hanks.
The sprinkler broke between the ceiling and the roof above the gym, she said. It caused a part of the ceiling to collapse. The flood of water was reported about 2:30 p.m. Sunday.
“Luckily, no children were in there at the time,” Hanks said. “They had been in there an hour earlier ... so no one was injured.”
The break occurred at a T-joint in the piping. The 2-inch pipe apparently froze when temperatures dipped into the single digits late last week, she said.
It is unsure if the pipes need to be better insulated or if there was something deficient with the heating of the building that caused the pipe to burst, Hanks said.
“One of the concerns is that sprinkler system was put in in 1999, and has not to the best of our knowledge ever frozen before,” she said. “It’s not that these temperatures are that out of the ordinary for us at any given time during our winters.”
Rite of Passage, which operates the facility referred questions to the Department of Human Services.
Only eight inmates were in the detention center at the time of the water break, Hanks said.
With no sprinkler system, and a fire alarm system that may have been compromised, the children had to be moved to Grand Mesa Youth Services Center in Grand Junction and to the Pueblo Youth Services Center in Pueblo.
Hanks did not know when the building would be safe for children. She originally feared it would be unoccupiable for months, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. The sprinkler and ceiling need to be repaired, and the carpet needs to be dried, she said.
“This is a repairable scenario,” she said. “I think we can get to it pretty quickly.”
shane@durangoherald.com
