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A flood on the seventh floor of Brady Hall last night forced residents out of their dorms as the St. Paul Fire Department, Public Safety and Residence Life worked together to shut the water off and clean up the mess.
The flood was caused by a broken sprinkler head, and some rooms on the sixth and seventh floors were affected by the water.
“We do not know how it broke,” Director of Residence Life Aaron Macke said. “Once it breaks, it puts water out of the system in very heavy amounts.”
No one was hurt during the event, but some small-scale property damage did occur.
“As you can imagine, there’s a pretty decent amount of water on the floor,” Macke said. “It was just the hallway… for the bulk of the water. But of course, it got under doors. So there’s rooms on the seventh floor with wet carpets.
“For some of the rooms on seven, there was enough water where it started to seep through. We’ve got some rooms on the sixth floor too that have some damp carpet.”
Macke said that they don’t know how the sprinkler was broken, but freshman Quinn Deeds, who lives on the third floor, said that “someone was throwing a football and knocked a sprinkler open.”
Custodian Charlie LeClaire said that the event was due to “negligence from the kid.”
“It is an inconvenience for everyone living on these floors and in the building, getting sent out around 10:40 at night,” LeClaire said. “Most likely, the student and his family will get billed for it.”
Macke said that some students who lived on the sixth and seventh floors were forced to sleep in a new location for the night, and other students were given dry mattresses.
The Physical Plant is currently working on extracting water from the building and have set up fans to accelerate the drying process. In addition, some chemical sprays were used for the carpets to help dry them out and keep mold from setting in.
Damage costs have not yet been assessed. St. Thomas will cover damage to walls, light fixtures, electrical, and university furniture, but residents must rely on insurance to cover personal losses, Macke said.
“Last night when they did the initial walk-through, there were not many electronics on floors at all,” Macke said. “So it doesn’t seem to be much there. It’s probably going to be wet sneakers and some wet clothes.”