Frozen pipes kept New London firefighters busy Saturday in the wake of subzero temperatures overnight.

Battalion Chief Mark Waters around 3 p.m. was at Connecticut College responding to a tripped sprinkler system that left the first floor of the 1930 Fanning Hall building covered with water. Firefighters were assisting campus maintenance staff with getting the water out of the building.

It was the fourth call in a row in response to frozen pipes, he said. The previous calls took them to an apartment complex, Harbor Village Rehabilitation & Nursing Center at 78 Viets Street and Barry’s Cleaners at 565 Colman St.

“With weather like this, the cold gets into void spaces and things freeze, and then when they warm up, they thaw and pop,” he said.

He expected it would take several hours to clear the water and dry the first floor.

The call to the college came in around 2:30 p.m. with reports of smoke. Waters said it was likely oil residue that can look like smoke when pipes burst.

Norwich Police Saturday night said they fielded a couple calls for burst pipes. East Lyme police said they received one.

East Lyme Police Chief and Emergency Management Director Mike Finkelstein noted that not everybody calls for help when burst pipes lead to flooding. Those that do often need assistance from the fire department to pump out their basements.

Finkelstein said another concern during the overnight hours going into Saturday was a power outage affecting 152 people in the section of town near Montville and Salem.

If a lot of households were out of power for an extended period with temperatures below zero, he said “it was going to get dangerous quick for people.”

But the return of power after a couple hours meant officials did not have to put emergency protocols into place that could range from encouraging people to warm up in the public safety building if there’s only a small number of people affected, to opening the senior center for larger groups, to establishing an emergency shelter in conjunction with the American Red Cross if more people are left out in the cold for long.

Temperatures overnight in the Groton/New London area got down to -4 degrees with a wind chill that made it feel like -27, according to the National Weather Service.

e.regan@theday.com