Flooding closed a building at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Tuesday, leading faculty and administrators to relocate some final exams.
According to alerts the university sent out Tuesday afternoon, the Gruening Building will remain closed Wednesday and is expected to reopen Thursday. The alerts say that’s due to a line break in the sprinkler system on the building’s ground floor, which caused flooding on that floor and two floors beneath it.
UAF students are taking final exams for the Fall 2025 semester this week, and testing scheduled to happen in the flooded building had to change locations. As of Tuesday at 9:30 p.m., the UAF alert page showed that university officials had relocated six exams.
The notice about the flooding and building closure came a few hours after a different university alert, which was posted Tuesday morning around 8 a.m. The earlier alert said low steam pressure at the UAF combined heat and power plant was limiting heat and hot water in campus buildings.
Fairbanks temperatures hovered around 30 degrees below zero Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service. Extreme cold is forecasted to continue through much of this week and into next week.
UAF Communications Director Marmian Grimes said Tuesday evening it wasn’t yet clear if the sprinkler line break was related to limited heat and hot water in campus buildings.
“They’re still looking into it,” she said. “We’ve been focused on clean up today and are still looking at damage and causes and stuff.”
The Tuesday morning alert about low steam pressure at the plant said it could be “several hours before buildings return to normal temperatures and hot water is restored.”
Grimes said a mechanical failure in one of the fans in the plant’s main boiler caused the problem. She said crews turned on backup boilers, which took a little bit of time to get things warm again, kicking in around midday.
“I believe there’s still some repairs to be made to the main boiler, but the backup boilers are up and keeping steam coming through the lines and providing that heat and hot water,” she said.
Grimes said the university doesn’t expect additional problems with heating connected to the mechanical failure. She said any updates to the exam relocations or facilities issues will be posted to the UAF alerts website.