Students in Hart Hall received an unexpected surprise when a pipe burst Friday Nov. 8. The leak resulted in water being turned off and students relocating to Sutton Hall and other places.
According to Dean of Students, Tony Jones, the leak was first noticed in the early evening hours on Friday and was immediately reported to maintenance. Maintenance came to assess the issue and decided the best solution would be to isolate the leak to one area and deal with the rest of the repairs on the following Monday.
Maintenance shut off the water to rooms 17-20 on all three floors of Hart for the weekend. Rooms 217 and 218 had the worst of the leak, with the rooms experiencing slight flooding and the bathroom ceiling falling in. Water was restored to all rooms on Monday, and some additional repairs, like fixing the ceiling, were made throughout the week.
The students in the rooms without water were supposed to be offered temporary housing in Sutton until the leak was fixed, but only a few knew about this offer. Jones said, “Unfortunately, as a residence life staff, we did not communicate as fully as we should have, and this offer should have been made to the students on Friday.”
For some students, like freshman Emily Beasor, awareness of this option could have prevented students from having to make other, more inconvenient arrangements. Beasor went home for the weekend and was notified about the issue in her dorm by her roommate. “When I came back Sunday night, it had gotten so bad over the weekend that I had to return home because I couldn’t stay in my dorm,” said Beasor. “I live two hours away.”
Beasor also said that very few students from the 12 rooms that had the water shut off were notified that they would be without water for the weekend. She said that because few knew about the Sutton offer, most of those students had to either go home for the weekend or find somewhere else to stay off-campus.
Beasor and her roommate were under the impression that maintenance would be working on the issue through the weekend. When she discovered the work had been deferred to Monday, she was frustrated. “With the leak as bad as it was and this many people out of water for a whole weekend, maintenance should have worked over the weekend to fix it,” said Beasor. “They [maintenance] could have, and should have handled the situation much better.”
Jones spoke about the miscommunication and time issues, saying “We [residence life] discussed our communication process in a staff meeting and maintenance did as well.”
All of the repairs were completed, and all the students who had to move elsewhere have moved back into Hart.
Headline photo: The bathroom ceiling to room 218 in Hart fell in after a water leak on Friday, Nov. 8.