Water Valve Theft Floods Apartment Building
ST. PAUL, Minn. (WCCO) -- It's now clearer why vandals may have flooded a St. Paul apartment building twice.
It's been happening at the Sibley Court Apartments on East Seventh Street and North Temperance. On Nov. 19, somebody got up to the fifth floor of the building and turned on a big water pipe.
Investigators say Saturday, someone turned it on again and stole the valve that controlled the water flow. It flooded more than 50 apartments inside the Sibley Court Apartments.
"No, I've never seen anybody steal a valve before," said property manager Gordon Willey.
Willey says in all his years of property management, this is a first.
"It's a valve that the fire department connects their hoses to when they come in a building to put out a fire, and somebody unscrewed that with the stand pipe live, with water in it, and had water spraying all over them while they did it and took the valve," said Willey.
Willey says close to 300 gallons of water per minute exploded out of the stand pipe on the fifth floor of Sibley Court in downtown St Paul. Apartments on the third and fourth floor were soaked because water spilled from the ceiling down.
Firefighters had to find the shut-off valve in the basement of the building to stop the flow of water.
"We would really love to know who did it," said Willey.
Willey hopes someone sees this report, recognizes the valve that was stolen and turns in the person or people responsible.
He said the stolen valve was solid brass and cost the company $300 to replace that valve. If sold as scrap the stolen valve would be worth much, much less.
Security outside and inside the building has been increased.
St. Paul police do not know who is responsible.
Management is taking care of people who cannot get back into their apartments.
