East Stroudsburg Area School District staff told the board that Resica Elementary closed Oct. 20 because of an unexpected water‑service problem that was traced to a leaking exterior fountain.

Maggie described the system: the district’s filtration pumps move water up to a tower that holds about 125,000 gallons; staff discovered abnormally high consumption while pumps and filters were not keeping the tower full. Technicians performed a required backflush of the filters to clear heavy sediment; backflushing uses significant volumes of water and emptied the tank during the remedial work.

As staff investigated building plumbing, Daryl and the facilities crew identified an exterior drinking fountain that was leaking — staff described the leak rate as large enough that the fountain would not have been obvious without inspection. The fountain was shut off, filters were cleaned, and pumps refilled the tower; staff reported the building had usable water by about 4 p.m. the same day.

Maggie praised the rapid response: transportation arranged buses within 45 minutes to move students safely, and staff and parents cooperated with the early dismissal. No long‑term service outages were reported, and the fountain remains offline pending repair.

Because some numeric figures in the meeting transcript were inconsistent, the article notes only those quantities clearly supported by staff statements: the water tower capacity (about 125,000 gallons), the identified abnormal use during the incident (approximately 14,000 gallons a day noted in meeting discussion), and that the fountain leak was substantial enough to explain the excess usage. The district will repair or permanently isolate the fountain and has restored service to the school.