GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A pipe burst at the Grand Rapids Public Museum (GRPM) Thursday morning, causing parts of the building to flood.
It was just after 6 a.m. when a security guard noticed a drop of pressure in the museum's fire suppression system, with several alarms sounding.
"Upon sort of sticking their head out of the security office, they noticed that there was a pretty significant leak in one of the pipes in the main galleria of the museum," explained Alex Forist, chief curator at the museum.
"It's been quite a day, but things are looking up."
Fire crews were quick on scene, able to stop the flow of water.
There is a portion of pipe going to the east wall of the museum, along the river, that began to freeze. In turn, the pipe burst within the inside portion.
"The leak actually happened, for folks who are familiar with the museum, right over the street car, which is that horse-drawn Grand Rapids street car from the 1890s," Forist said.
"Unfortunately, some of that water did get into some of the shops in the Streets of Old Grand Rapids."
Late Thursday afternoon, outside crews decided they were going to have to replace the busted pipe.
A portion of brick tiling in the galleria, near the break, had to be ripped out as well.
Museum officials released a video on social media showing some of the damage.
The street car should be fine, Forist explained. It was of course built to be used in a true outdoors setting.
Water also got into the grocery store space within the Old Streets exhibit, dripping from above onto several artifacts.
By Thursday afternoon, museum officials felt they could restore all of the impacted artifacts aside from maybe a poster with some water damage.
"My team has been evaluating collections in that grocery store, pulling objects off of the exhibit that got wet, and starting the process to conserve or dry out those objects," Forist said.
Staff was able to get the cleanup and restoration process into motion so quickly thanks to a fairly recent emergency response plan.
"So, our museum is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums," Forist said. "One of the the sort of required things that you have to demonstrate in order to be accredited is that you have a[n] emergency response, disaster response plan, and so ours really had just been updated within about the last year."
Their work made it so the damage wasn't more extensive.
Staff had to temporarily close down the museum for the rest of the day Thursday, but are moving along quickly.
The Grand Rapids Public Museum expects to be back open to the public at 9 a.m. Friday morning. You may encounter some fans set out, and some small closures, but for the most part things will be back to normal.
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