Long Bridge Aquatics & Fitness Center is closed until further notice following an incident that caused the sprinkler and fire alarm system to go off.
A pipe in the ceiling of the county facility near Crystal City may have burst around 11:30 a.m. today (Wednesday), according to scanner traffic. A tipster told ARLnow that the facility was evacuated following a “sudden water gush and falling ceiling tiles in [the] diving board area.”
“My classmate and I happened to notice a trickle of water coming down then suddenly the ceiling’s tiles began falling and water began spewing down,” said another person who was there, during a swim class. The county said they could not immediately confirm those details.
An announcement on the aquatics center’s webpage says the facility has closed “due to sprinkler maintenance.”
“At this moment, we are not certain of what caused the sprinkler system to turn on, however the Arlington County Fire Department is on site investigating the cause,” Arlington County Dept. of Parks and Recreation spokesperson Jerusalem Solomon said.
She added that “our top priority at this time is to make sure everyone is moved out of the competition pool area.”
“We will alert the community as soon as necessary repairs are complete and the pool is reopened,” Solomon said. “Any impacts to program participants will be shared with them directly.”
Last year, a corroded sprinkler hose caused leaky pipes and water damage to ceiling tiles in the area of the aquatics center’s 50-meter pool. The pool had shorter hours for several months as Coakley Williams Construction — the contracting company given the contract to design and build the facility in 2017 — handled repairs.
That is not the only time infrastructure issues have caused problems at the $70.7 million recreation complex, which opened in 2021. In April 2023, an electrical emergency caused the center to close briefly.
