By Cameron Enders, Out and About Section Editor
The start of the semester has already faced the Daemen community with two separate flooding situations.
On Monday Jan. 27, an uncapped sink line in Duns Scotus leaked into DS 337, and on Thursday Jan. 23, a frozen water pipe burst into apartment 96, flooding 96-3 and 96-11.
The flooding in DS 337 forced Dr. Hannah Attard, an assistant professor of physics, to relocate from her office until that Friday, Jan. 31.
“I kind of bopped around a couple places. I have my research lab that I was doing a lot of work in, and then the English Department gratefully took me in for a few hours when I needed some more office space,” said Attard.
The burst pipe in apartment 96 proved to be more severe, as the students whose apartments flooded were still unable to return as of Wednesday, Feb. 19.
“We were in the building, and I heard a noise coming from an air vent. I didn’t know what it was, then I thought it was a car alarm. It was the fire alarm going off, and then a trickling noise came louder in the air vent. We went over to our apartment, and there was water trickling out of our apartment and their apartment,” Xachary Szewcyk, a sophomore forensics major and resident of one of the apartments, said.
After security came to the building, the students living in the two apartments were moved into Canavan to stay until it was safe to move back.
“It was messy, to say the least,” Szewcyk said.
“They had us in a room for a while, and then they prepared our rooms for Canavan,” Hannah Ehlert, a sophomore paralegal major and fellow resident, said, “They told us we had to take what we would need for the next two or three weeks, and then the rest of our stuff had to go into storage, which is in Yurtchuk.”
During the move-out process, students were accompanied by supervisors to record and take pictures of any damaged property so they could be properly compensated.
“They emailed us almost two weeks ago and were like, ‘This is what we found damaged; let us know if there was anything else,’ and we did. Through their insurance company, we’re supposed to get checks for them,” said Ehlert.
“When we were waiting to get our rooms, we had been told, ‘Don’t worry, we’re preparing and cleaning your rooms.’ I got in there, and it was disgusting,” said Szewcyk. “It’s very loud, hard to accommodate to.”
According to Lori Zimpfer-Caccamise, the director of facilities, the pipe burst was due to the water lines in the apartments that froze when going through the unheated attic.
“We tend to try to take a lot of caution to make sure the pipes stay covered, but with this extreme cold, all it must be is a little opening in the covering. And that’s what caused the freeze,” Zimpfer-Caccamise said, “I never would have put a water line in an unheated attic, but they were built in a time where that was more of an appropriate thing to do.”
“I just kind of wish they kept us updated on what was going on,” Szewcyk said. “We still don’t know if we’re getting an email before we move in or the day of; we can move in.
“I feel like there is a lot I could complain about, but also no one wants their apartment to flood. So, I will take what I can get; at least I’m not homeless,” Ehlert said.