Two City Plaza businesses suffered a water mishap last week when an unknown person inadvertently flooded various rooms in the council building and Westpac Bank.
The building’s water supply was temporarily shut down last Wednesday as SA Water worked on services a short distance away.
The unknown person attempted to use a hand basin in a bathroom in the building when they discovered the water was not connected and forgot to turn the tap back off.
“Yesterday, (last Wednesday) when SA water were doing work on the services just up the road, we had no water in this building,” Whyalla City Council asset manager Michelle Tucker said.
“Then of course someone’s obviously gone to the toilet and turned a tap on and no water has come out and they haven’t turned it off.
“Later on when the water has come back on, so has the tap, and it’s just gradually flooded down into this office (infrastructure office) and then into the bank.”
Steel City Cleaners responded quickly to council’s calls for help and despatched a team of professional emergency cleaners to mop up the mess.
“We’ve cleaned out the materials, taken out some of the water from the carpets, which were just too wet to dry out, and we’re currently having our electronic equipment and furniture assessed for water damage by the insurance company,” Ms Tucker said.
Two computers and two desktop phones were affected by moisture during the flooding.
The Whyalla branch of Westpac was closed all day Thursday due to the flooding but was open for business as usual the following day.
Westpac relieving branch manager Sharon Dempsey apologises to any bank customers inconvenienced by the disruption.