QUANTICO MARINE CORPS BASE — Quantico’s CDC (Child Development Center) North has reopened for business after a sewage backup.
The center was closed for over a week, displacing 230 children, after sewage flooded several rooms in the facility, said Quantico Marine Corps Base spokesman Maj. Ken Kunze.
Sewage flooded the center Tuesday, January 29, prompting an early dismissal. The closure was prolonged due to the sewage backup reoccurring the next day after they had initially repaired it, and then a construction crew working on a high school next door ruptured a water line – “so they had no water to complete the sanitation cleanup,” Kunze explained.
The ruptured water line added about two days to the closure.
They hired an “outside plumbing company to come in and put the camera down and get everything out.”
Foreign objects that were found in the sewer system were dislodged. Kunze couldn’t describe them.
The base also hired a professional cleaning company to sanitize the building – everything down to the toys was cleaned. There was no structural damage to the center, said Kunze.
The Child Development Center is a daycare center for school-age children. Due to the center being more affordable than off-base child care, Kunze explained that the center operates at capacity, filled the brim with children.
Marine parents who use the center had to leave work and pick up their children when the sewage backed up. The CDC will credit the parents for the days that their children missed care and will be reimbursed financially.
CDC South, a second child care center on the base, is a newer facility in a separate location and was not affected.
