INDIANAPOLIS — Monday was supposed to be a warm welcome to crowds after a holiday break. Instead, flooding in a section of the Children's Museum of Indianapolis has forced the facility to remain closed another day.
"It was like a waterfall happening within our welcome center," said Audra Blasdel, the vice president of operations at the museum. "We had anywhere from a half inch to a quarter inch of standing water."
A sprinkler pipe burst Sunday night, leading to flooding in the welcome center.
"Through the course of the bitter cold we've been enduring, it had frozen and as that thaw out started, it broke loose," said Blasdel.
The Children's Museum is just one of many businesses and residences experiencing busted pipes.
"We're still getting anywhere from 1,500 to 2,500 calls a day," said Matt Tyner, the vice president of brand for Williams Comfort Air & Mr. Plumber. They have been at their busiest this past weekend.
"As things start to thaw, that's when the damage starts showing," said Tyner. "That's when a lot of people will find out if they've had a frozen pipe that maybe they don't use a lot in their house."
They say, if you think a pipe is frozen, call for help.
"Get someone out there to take a look at it because they'll be able to identify if there's a split in the line because that's really where the damage comes into play," said Tyner.
As The Children's Museum begins to clean up the mess, they're keeping in mind the week's busy schedule.
"It's not, 'How do we manage a thousand or two thousand people coming in?' It's, 'How do we manage upwards of 5,000 people coming in?" said Blasdel.
The museum's pipe burst during one of its busiest times of the year and right ahead of one of its most popular events — the countdown to noon on New Year's Eve. The museum said they don't know when they'll reopen or how that'll look, but they assured us it's going to look different this year because of this flooding.
"We know that it probably won't be or won't feel the same way and the biggest change will be how our visitors will enter and exit the museum," said Blasdel. "When we do get to the point when we are reopening, we just encourage everyone to come and be patient."
People who had tickets can call the museum's customer service department between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. to exchange them.