The third floor of Wheeler Hall was subject to flooding last Friday morning, September 23. A broken toilet led to the water build up that is responsible for flooding the two rooms in the suite as well as the hallway in front of and around the rooms. Fortunately, the damage was not too severe, and no one was hurt.
Imagine waking up and splashing your feet in the water that surrounds your bed. Could be like a paradise, right? You're dreaming of sleeping in a hammock draped between two trees over top warm tidal pools on a tropical beach, right? This was not the case for four unsuspecting freshman sleeping their way to the last day of classes for the week. According to Paige Rollins, the toilet was flushed once on Thursday night and never stopped flushing. She recalls, "I [didn't] know what was going on, the toilet [was] possess[ed]."
Once the problems began, the RA's were called and maintenance was contacted and set to come later. At the time this seemed to be a reasonable fix but more issues ensued when a ring on the pipes busted due to the constant flushing and the water began spewing back out of the toilet, causing the rooms to flood. While the problems with the toilet began closer to midnight, the flooding did not start until later and was not discovered until sometime around three or four in the morning. At this point the water had already gotten high enough to where it was quickly coming out from under the door and making its grand escape to the surrounding hallway.
The RA's and REC were contacted once again, as well as maintenance and emergency housekeeping staff, after the girls awoke to water rising in their dorm room. Residents of third floor Wheeler had to act quickly if they wanted to prevent the water from rushing into their rooms and causing water damage. Everyone mobilized to bring towels to sop up the water and block the doors. According to talk around the hallway, it was a real group effort, and it just goes to show how tightly knit the community is.
Once the immediate efforts to clean the water were made the hallway was vacuumed and giant fans were wheeled onto the third floor to help dry the carpets. They remained there for the rest of the weekend, and as of now, no real stains remain in the hallway. The entire endeavor of cleaning up the mess and getting the fans set in place to dry the water was finally finished by 6:00 AM that Friday.
Some water did escape into the electrical system, causing the fire alarm to go off around midday Friday. The problem was quickly corrected and there has been no other slip-up with the electrical panels since. That, in addition to some lost ceiling tiles on the second floor and water damage on the ground floor of Wheeler, there was no other damage worth mentioning other than the casualty of sleep from many of the Wheeler residents that Friday night.
