Chandler Hardy, economics/mass communications junior, and Keziah Williamson, acting senior, were woken up at 6 a.m. Sept. 8 to the sound of maintenance crews banging on the door to their fourth floor room in United Methodist Hall.
Their room had flooded and they were forced to leave.
“My roommate noticed there was standing water in our kitchen, and we had to leave the room to go to the Caf,” Hardy said.
That was the extent of the damage to their room.
Hardy and Williamson will be staying at Hardy’s parents’ house in Oklahoma City, about fifteen minutes away. They are expected to move back to their dorm by next Thursday.
There was a total of six rooms that had to be cleared out, but only three of those rooms housed students.
There are more rooms that were damaged, but not to the point of evacuation. Some students were given the option to move out but decided against it.
The flooding was caused by a ruptured gasket in a chill water line, which is the cold water that feeds into the air units.
Kevin Culbertson, coordinator of housing operations, said the break was most likely caused by the Sept. 4 earthquake, which measured at a 5.8 magnitude.
“Those lines don’t just break,” Culbertson said. “The earthquake was probably just the thing that set it off.”
The flood was discovered at 5 a.m. Sept. 8, and the facilities department was called to respond. After they had assessed the damage, a disaster response team came to clean up the dorms.
The disaster response team is performing water tests and moisture ratings on all rooms in the northeast corner of Methodist to ensure that the walls of the building aren’t damaged.
Culbertson said:
There’s going to be a lot of construction going on and a lot of inconvenience.”
Fans and humidifiers are set up in the hallways to dry out the lower floors.
“All hands are on deck right now,” Culbertson said. “Facilities and disaster response are working hard. They’re doing their best to asses the issue.”
Culbertson apologizes for the inconvenience and sympathizes with students who are studying and preparing for rehearsals while they’re being forced out of their dorms.
“I don’t think there’s anything we could have done to prevent this from happening,” Culbertson said. “This stuff happens. It’s just one of those things, but everyone has been very cooperative.
Leave a Reply