A water leak in the Free Expression Tunnel coming from a manhole on the Dabney side caused flooding in a large portion of the pathway, which some students said was an inconvenience.

William West, a facilities employee, said he is not sure what the specific cause of the water was.

“I heard it was a sewage leak,” West said

Additional facilities employees responded to the scene and said the flooding was caused by a backed-up sewer main, which was the source of the problem.

According to Associate Vice Chancellor for Facilities Kevin MacNaughton, most of the backup went down the storm sewer and the city had to flush the storm sewer out to eliminate the contamination.

Crew workers pulled a truck up to the site and used a hose to unclog the blocked pipes.

Natalie Bunch, a sophomore in landscape architecture, said when she walked through the tunnel around 11:30 a.m. there was water covering the ground, which emitted a bad smell but no one was preventing students from passing through.

“You could see shards of toilet paper floating in the water so you knew it was sewage,” Bunch said. “Two policemen were just standing there not really doing anything.”

Carl Hughes, a junior in First Year College, said when he walked by the tunnel, there was water covering the north side of the entrance to the walkway.

“There was about six inches of water leaking out of the manhole outside Dabney hall,” Hughes said. “The water smelled like sewage.”

Bunch said the problem could have been easily diverted and there was no reason that facilities officials couldn’t have prevented students from having to walk through the sewage.

“They could have easily put up some sand bags to divert the water, so it didn’t flood the entire tunnel,” Hughes said.