Faculty Operations are working to restore the WSU website, wsu.edu, following a flood in the Information Technology building earlier today, said Executive Director of Communications Kathy Barnard.

Repair efforts are focused on websites that affect students, including Zzusis, which Barnard said looks different but is now operational. Barnard said student email is still hit-or-miss, and that although students can log into their Angel accounts they won’t be able to access the content.

A timeline for when the entire server will be restored has not yet been determined, Barnard said.

She said in-class finals are not affected by the flood and will proceed as planned. Students with online finals, including those with WSU Global Campus, should work with their professors to reschedule a time to take their exam, she said. Student grades will not suffer as a result of the shutdown.

“We are not going to penalize students for a problem with the system,” Barnard said.

WSU Faculty Operations responded to a call about the water damage in the IT building at 7 a.m. Barnard said the flood appears to be a result of a frozen pipe on the second floor. As temperatures rose, the pipe burst and waterlogged the first floor of the building.

With most traditional avenues of dispersing information out of commission, the university had to get creative about how to communicate details of the situation to students.

“We were able to post on Facebook, we tweeted, it was on Tumblr,” Barnard said. “We’ve used every available channel that we can to get the word out.”

Students signed up for the emergency notification system Coug Alert also received a phone call and text message at about 10 a.m. The alert informed students that on-campus finals would proceed as scheduled.

The university has yet to comment on whether the server shutdown will change the Dec. 17 deadline for posting grades.