A broken water pipe in Bob nearly flooded the first floor of the house Friday night, causing a temporary water shutoff to three Row houses. Bob residents managed to keep the water contained to the area of the initial leak in the drywall.

Samir Siddhanti ’12, one of the Bob residents who initially noticed the leak, said it started around 10 p.m., when several residents noticed a “mist” emanating from a “dime-sized” hole below a first-floor sink.

Siddhanti called Bob RA Sam Svoboda ’11, who is a former editor for The Daily, and Student Housing’s emergency maintenance around 10:30 p.m. By that point, water had streamed out of the hole and threatened to damage furniture and flood three adjoining student rooms on the first floor.

“A few of our residents actually tried to block the hole,” Svoboda said. “They put some caulk in it and some tape and tried to stem the flooding.”

Svoboda and Siddhanti both said that Housing was slow to respond to their emergency request, since the necessary technician had to come from his home.

“For half an hour, we were just doing damage control,” Svoboda said. “We set up some trash cans to try and catch all the water that was spraying out, and we kept removing those as they got full. A few of us were just consistently mopping for an hour or two hours, just to make sure that the water didn’t build up and flood.”

Svoboda added that, since the burst pipe carried hot water, a steam buildup triggered the fire alarm. Both the fire and police departments were called to the house.

After the maintenance technician arrived at Bob around 11:30 p.m., he was able to seal the leak in the pipe. Repairs necessitated a brief shutoff of water to Bob, as well as to Casa Italiana and Xanadu, as all three houses share a water piping system.

Svoboda said that the fix put in place by Housing was only temporary, and that the pipes would necessitate more complete repairs at a later date.