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PHOTO COURTESY OF MAUI COUNTY MANAGING DIRECTOR KEITH REGAN
Offices at War Memorial Gym will be closed today because the complex has no water service following Thursday night's water main break, officials said.
PHOTO COURTESY OF MAUI COUNTY MANAGING DIRECTOR KEITH REGAN
PHOTO COURTESY OF MAUI COUNTY MANAGING DIRECTOR KEITH REGAN
PHOTO COURTESY OF MAUI COUNTY MANAGING DIRECTOR KEITH REGAN
Water from a ruptured water main flooded offices and hallways in Maui’s War Memorial Gymnasium late Thursday night, causing at least $200,000 in damage, officials said this morning.
The water did not flood the gymnasium itself and the gym’s basketball court was untouched, county spokesman Rod Antone said in a news release.
For now, there is no water service for the entire War Memorial Sports Complex, including the gym, the football stadium and the soccer and Little League fields. About 18 county employees who work in the gym offices have to be relocated, Antone said.
County work crews said the water main broke after a vehicle hit a fire hydrant in the Maui Lani subdivision about 5:30 p.m. Thursday. That blew a regulator which sent high-pressure water through the system and overwhelmed the aging pipes beneath the gym sometime before 11:30 p.m.
Water then burst through the floor in one of the gym offices. County workers said there was enough water flooding hallways and offices to fill an Olympic-sized pool.
A preliminary estimate of damage is about $200,000, but does not take into account water-damaged equipment, Antone said.
Earlier this year, Mayor Alan Arakawa asked the County Council for money to design a new gymnasium/civic center because of rising maintenance costs of the 50-year-old War Memorial facility.
