The subject line of a mass e-mail sent to the residents of Hurd, Hitzeman, and Myers (HIG) residential college by Director Erik Albinson was, “The Great HIG Floods of 2004″. Over winter break and into the first weeks of the current semester, pipes froze and exploded in six different HIG suites, leaving residents with flooded homes and Washington University with a large bill to pay.

Hurd 12 resident Andrew Evenson was in his room when his pipes burst.

“It happened around three in the afternoon,” said Evenson. “I was just sitting at my computer and I started to hear a hissing sound underneath the bed. Then I guess the pipe busted and there was boiling hot water all over the floor within, I’d say, about three minutes.”

Evenson attributed the burst to the fact that his room’s heater was out of order at the time.

“I mean, our heater had basically been blowing out cold air for a couple of weeks already,” he said. “The pipes didn’t stand a chance.”

In resident Darcy Heusel’s suite, Hitzeman 12, nearly four inches of water covered the floor by the time the flooding was over. Heusel believes the pipes cracked as a result of turning off the heaters at night.

“I think what happened is that lots of people here were turning off their heaters because it got really hot with them on at night,” said Heusel. “In the morning we would all turn them back on. Eventually it got cold enough at night that the pipes froze.”

Heusel said that it took about 30 minutes for maintenance crews to make it to her suite.

Following the floods, the University works with students to reimburse them for damaged items. Evenson described the process.

“Basically we just got all of the stuff that had been ruined together and took it over to ResLife, ” said Evenson. “It ruined my computer and a lot of my clothes, plus my school books. We told ResLife how much all of the stuff cost us and they’re in the process of making us out checks right now.”

Reimbursement costs mounted several thousands of dollars in each of the suites that flooded. In instances in which hot water pipes exploded, the expense to the University was higher. In Hurd 12, the water that filled the suite was so hot that it damaged the tile floors.

Some flood victims were at first frustrated by the process of receiving reimbursement from the University.

“It’s just a pain to live there,” said resident Seth Klein, of Hurd 12. “I seriously can’t walk into the place. It reeks and I don’t have any of my stuff.”

Scott Wagganer, the facilities coordinator for Residential Life, oversees the day-to-day operations of the residence halls. When situations like exploding heaters occur, he also acts in the capacity of a “middle man between Residential Life and the school’s insurance company.”

He explained that going through Residential Life is much easier for students, as compared to residents having to deal with an outside insurance company, like State Farm, by themselves.

“We try to accommodate students as much as possible,” said Wagganer. “They give us a list of things that were destroyed or cannot be cleaned, as we reimburse them for those items. We understand that people might be losing important heirlooms, and we don’t want that to happen for anyone.”

Most residents of flooded suites said they are now satisfied with the results of the University’s response.

“I think [that] given the circumstances, they have basically done the best that they can to fix this problem,” said Heusel.

Evenson is hopeful about a swift resolution.

“I think its all going to be taken care of,” agreed Evenson.

For many HIG residents, however, the floodings brought to light the deteriorating conditions of the buildings.

“I think these buildings are well-designed. They have a nice space,” said Hurd 21 resident Zach Schwanbeck, “But in the sense that there were so many floodings, it seems like the pipes are just dead. It would be nice to live somewhere where the pipes didn’t burst all the time. Also, our washers and dryers constantly break down.”

Wagganer stressed that students must be sure to keep their units on, and to have the fan going at low or medium at all times. He said, however, that aside from keeping students informed about maintenance, he and others are currently looking into alternative solutions to the heater problems. He has contacted mechanical engineers, and will soon be examining the heating/cooling system, which is now over 40 years old.

Popularity: 1% [?]

 Print This Post

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 11th, 2004 at 12:00 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.