HURON –– After a busy weekend at the state amateur basketball tournament, Nordby Center for Recreation director Joey Mitchell was looking forward to starting his week as the Executive Director of the Nordby Center for Recreation.

“I heard a pop,” Mitchell recalled. “I didn’t really think much of it, thinking it could have come from all sorts of things, but it was loud.”

“Then, someone came in and told me there was water under the bleachers in the gym,” he continued. “I went to look because there shouldn’t be water there.”

Mitchell found what he described as a coffee-like substance under the bleachers, but when he pulled the bleachers away from the wall, he saw that water was coming in from the wall.

A water main had broken just outside the Nordby Center building, and that led to a rush of water coming into the building. Mitchell found water “three to four inches deep” in the downstairs weight room and a steady stream of sand-infested water heading into the pool from a flooded boiler room.

He quickly shut off all sources of water in the building and had a “mountain of towels” to hold the water in the weight room as he noted, “Water was completely pouring in through the electrical outlets.”

Shutting off the water meant that the bathrooms and locker rooms were not usable, and with the damage within the walls in the facility still unknown, Mitchell made the decision to close Monday and not to re-open until Wednesday.

Classes were cancelled for the week, but they will resume Monday, March 10, as a new water line was put in to handle the bathrooms.

The pool? That’s a whole other issue.

Mitchell shook his head. “We have a big project to get the pool cleaned up and ready to use again,” he explained, as he pointed out the emptied pool, with a heavy layer of sand throughout the entire structure. “It will be multiple weeks before we can think about re-opening the pool.”

He explained that the pool area likely will require multiple cleanings before re-filling the pool, and even then, he’s not sure what other issues may come for the pool area.

“I haven’t really dug into the pump - and we just got that pump recently - or the filter for the pool,” Mitchell stated. “But it would be surprising if there isn’t a lot of sand in both. We just don’t know for sure yet.”

Mitchell expressed gratitude to Pro Clean Plus, the City of Huron Water and Sewer Department, and GRP Plumbing for their help getting the facility going again.

Mitchell also stated that there will be some ongoing work that could interrupt and/or interfere with classes after classes resume on Monday.

“We’ll have some noise and potentially some construction dust as they work in the walls,” he said, and then chuckled. “Oh, yeah, and the jackhammer might make things a bit noisy.”

Though it’s been a long, sleepless week for Mitchell, he saw the community surround him quickly.

“It was definitely a Huron community thing,” he smiled. “We had members contacting their family who were in plumbing or digging to help. Everyone really did whatever they could to help out.”