UPDATE: 4:25 p.m.

Staff at TRU say the first floor of the Open Learning Building will be closed indefinitely for remediation work after being damaged by flooding today.

Spokesperson Darshan Lindsay says though that the second, third and fourth floors of that building will reopen on Monday.

A water main break happened in the building early this afternoon, which houses the school’s IT services.

“In terms of IT services, we had been concerned about the potential for impact to our network systems. But thankfully that has not occurred, and all systems are back up online.”

Lindsay says staff who work on that first floor of the Open Learning Building will be relocated while repairs take place.

She adds students won’t be impacted by the flood event.

ORIGINAL: 3:00 p.m.

Officials at Thompson Rivers University says what is believed to be a water line break has caused significant flooding at the Open Learning Building.

TRU spokesperson Darshan Lindsay says the university’s IT systems are at risk as they are on the first floor of the impacted building.

“We have had a situation with what we believe is a water pipe failure although it is not determined what the cause is. That has resulted in our Open Learning Building being closed. The closure is indefinite. This is also effecting the bus exchange, which is right outside the building. We have rerouted the exchange to the west entrance outside of the Trades Building.”

Lindsay says they believe there may be a fair amount of flood damage being done to the building.

“Absolutely. The Fire Department has been on scene and we are looking at seeing what kind of damages are occurring inside.”

Lindsay says students and staff should stay away from the scene and let emergency crews do their work.