If you’re seeing new faces in your residence halls this semester, it could be because of a incident that occurred in Martin Hall over the break. Record cold temperatures caused pipes to burst, leaving behind water damage and causing some students to have to change halls. Dec. 24 brought bitterly cold temperatures of negative two degrees, with windchills dipping below -20, according to archived data from Weather Underground. 

Dec. 25 was not much better, as temperatures hovered around 13 degrees for most of the day. According to Kelly Hardie, dean of students, the cold temperatures pipes to burst, leaving significant water damage on the first, second, and third floors of Martin Hall.

She said she was notified of the breakage by security at around 10 p.m. on Christmas Day.

“The fire department was there,” she said. “They were able to successfully shut down the water and after that I immediately came in the office the next morning and started to work on relocating our students, inventorying all the items, working with public safety facility services.”

Hardie said the flooding impacted 44 students. It damaged some of their belongings, and the lounges on the second and third floors were set up to receive and catalog all the recovered items.

Nathan Grella, a student that lived on the second floor of Martin Hall, said he expected the damage to be worse than it actually was.

“All the electronic stuff works. The only thing that was ruined was a backpack that I kept under my desk,” he said. “We had a bunch of football scorebooks in there. Those are all moldy and stuff.”

The initial efforts to begin cleanup were largely because of faculty and staff volunteering to help. Hardie said 65 people stepped up.

“I think our mission of service was amazing and we lived it out that day,” she said.

Hardie said that measures have been taken to rehouse the students affected, utliizing all available resources available to the school.

“We’re using every open space, so that would include Willison hall, the on-campus houses that were offline until we turned them online, and then we’re also using any suite-style residence halls in Pollock, West, East and South,” she said.

Hardie said the school is working with a restoration company to assess the damages, but she is still unsure when the repairs will be completed.

“We’re working floor by floor. Currently, the restoration company is on third, and they have been for quite some time. And then we’re going to work down to second and first,” she said.

Through it all, Hardie said that students have been understanding.

“They completely understood the situation and they were thankful for the process and the assistance that we provided,” she said. “But I’m even more thankful for them because I’m so sorry that it happened. And I do apologize and I appreciate their patience throughout.”