Everyone at Smithtown High School West was recently buzzing about the Legionnaires epidemic. Many students and faculty got sick and the school had to have people come in to clean to remove the legionella bacteria.
The biggest question has been “was it even an epidemic at all?” The answer? Simple. Not at all. The students weren’t affected by it. The faculty wasn’t affected by it. The building itself wasn’t even affected by the legionella bacteria.
According to principal, Mr.Coady, “Legionnaires is a bacteria that manifests itself under certain conditions. So it’s a bacteria just like any other bacteria.”
Having the legionella bacteria in the cooling towers of our school was not a problem at all, for several reasons. First, Coady pointed out that the cooling towers don’t affect anyone in the building. “The cooling towers are found up on the roof and are used to cool off our air conditioning system.” The cooling towers are a self-contained unit that is on the roof and then goes about 30 feet above the roof. The cooling towers are used to cool off our air conditioning systems. “When the pipes are hot you have to cool them off. And that’s strictly what it’s used for.”
The air in the air conditioning never mixes with the water or air in the cooling towers. This means that the finding of the legionella bacteria in the cooling towers was not as big of an issue as everyone said. It really wasn’t an issue at all. The only way there would have been an issue would be if the pipes had frozen and broke, but that didn’t happen, so there was no problem.
Second, the bacteria weren’t only found in Smithtown – they just found it first. Smithtown put their tests in first, so they got their results back first. When the results came back, the school immediately got the cooling towers cleaned. Other schools that found the bacterium include, but not limited to: Sachem, Mount Sinai, Middle Country, Hauppauge, Connetquot and Port Washington.
On top of that, Mr.Coady reassured that the cooling towers “are cleaned monthly, and then again at the end of every year, so, right, we turn it on sometime in May, but we have a timer put on usually the first week of May but we always close it October 15th and 16th because that’s when we switch over to heat.” Once the school switches over to heat, the cooling towers are no longer used. Before switching over, the cooling towers are completely drained and cleaned out.
Even though the bacteria was not in contact with the students or any faculty it was brought to our attention because a large majority of students were getting sick. These were two completely unrelated causes. Students and faculty were getting sick due to a change in temperature as autumn comes around. This then affects our immune system allowing us to get sick much easier. In no way was this related to the bacteria found in the cooling towers.
Smithtown West’s legionnaires epidemic clearly wasn’t as big of an issue as everyone made it out to be. “Legionelles could be found pretty much anywhere,” said Mr. Coady. “If you walk down the street you can pick it up anywhere.” In essence, Legionnaires is not something to be afraid of.