A break in the main water line Friday at a Baldwin elementary school left at least 2 inches of standing water throughout the building.

Supt. Jim White said staff at the school, which is used by kindergartners, first-graders and second-graders, arrived in the morning to find the building’s interior awash in water.

“We had flood waters in nearly every room,” he said. “It was several inches deep in the hallway.”

White said the problem at Baldwin Elementary Primary Center was isolated to a break in the main water line that runs beneath the school’s boiler room. It apparently broke during the night, he said, and sent water bubbling into the school.

“We finally were able to get the city out to turn the water off to the building totally,” he said.

Children attending the damaged primary center were taken to the district’s intermediate elementary school building, which has children in the third through fifth grades.

The displaced students were sent home at noon, White said.

Kimberly Barraclough, a reading resource room teacher at the Baldwin Elementary School Primary Center, keeps her pant legs rolled up as she and other teachers meet with Principal Deb Ehling. A water line pipe that broke sometime overnight flooded the kindergarten through second-grade school Friday morning, and many teachers joined in to help remove the water. About 190 students were sent home from school early.

No damage estimate was available Friday, but everything that was sitting on the floor was saturated.

White said resumption of classes Monday in the school depended on whether the break could be repaired swiftly.

“Our thought is that we’re hopeful that we can get the main repaired so that we can get the water back on,” he said.

The building where the leak occurred is at 712 Chapel, and opened as a public school in 1952.

— Staff writer Tim Carpenter can be reached at 832-7155.