June 23, 2012
Unfortunately due to technical difficulties our Independence Day meet will be cancelled for this weekend. It is our hope to get in a position to open the outdoor pool late on Monday. If this is the case we would like to offer you and your swimmers an opportunity to swim this meet next weekend. Once we know the final extent of our damages on Monday we will update all of you. You will have the chance to update the files. We will refund any entries that need to be pulled.
I wanted to take the time to let all of you know what happened to our pool. As of 8:00pm last night our pool was operating perfectly. Between 8:00pm and 5:45am we lost over 125,000 gallons of our outdoor pool and it went into our mechanical/pump room which caused a flood of over 10ft. The water covered our two motors for the indoor pools, both indoor and outdoor pool heaters, our chlorinators with over 500 gallons of chlorine, indoor filters, all pipes and most importantly our electrical panels.
At 5:45am we made a call to our staff and at 6:30am our physical plant on call arrived. Since that time they have been working tirelessly to help with our situation. They soon began to drain the pump room. At about 8:00am our pool company arrived and added a second pump. At about 10 am the fire department arrived and helped to pump it as well. Our staff continued to arrive including our electricians, HVAC, plumbers and our environmental safety and health representatives.
When we had a chance to get into the pump room about 12:30pm we were able to assess the situation. It was found that what caused the flood was a valve that went faulty. This valve came loose and closed by itself. It isolated our high temp heater and shut the flow down. Due to the pressure of the water it caused the joints to split. At that point the water just flowed into our pump room and our sump pumps could not keep up. We have determined it was not a preventative maintenance issue but more of bad luck.
Currently everything must dry out and every little electrical detail must be checked. Once ready they will need to start up each section one at a time and see if it works. After that we will need to check our pumps and more.
On behalf of UMBC, Retriever Aquatic Club and ASC we apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate the understanding. Most importantly we appreciate the understanding of our out of town teams. As a coach and a parent I know the problems this has caused. I wish there was more we can do for you.
Sincerely,
Chad Cradock
Head UMBC/RAC Coach