by Zarana Sanghani
Staff Writer
The sound of crashing water from the neighboring room was too loud for a shower, so Courtney Como and her roommate checked out their own bathroom to find the drainage pipe spewing water all over the tiles.
Because of the spewing water, Room 118 in Settegast Hall at the Quadrangle dormitories flooded Monday at 1:30 a.m.
"By the time the RA on call came, the water got everywhere," Como said. "In our room, the carpet was drenched and our suitemate's closet had two inches of water."
The attending resident advisor, junior Enrique Parrilla-Rojas, called maintenance, who instructed him to use a wet vacuum to suck out the water. Parrilla-Rojas said that, as standard procedure, he told every room directly above Room 118 to not use any water until maintenance arrived in the morning.
Maintenance decided the situation did not require anyone to visit the room to assess the problem until morning. The problem was probably a clogged drain, Executive Director of Residential Life and Housing Andy Blank said.
"Unless it's (water) running all over the place, they won't come in until eight in the morning," Blank said.
If the plumbers had to address the problem at 1:30 a.m., it would have cost the university more money than if maintenance had waited until morning. Instead, they attended to the room Monday morning, fixing the problem by the afternoon, Blank said.
A few other bathrooms have flooded over the past semester, Parrilla-Rojas said, and maintenance rarely comes to the troubled site late at night.
Even though Parrilla-Rojas contained the flood, he believes a professional should have helped. "They (Como and her roommate, Camilla McElligott) were asking me for rooms to spend the night. I was frustrated because I don't have the authority to give them another room. The people who did, didn't come."
Como's suitemates were out of town, but Como, McElligott and Parrilla-Rojas secured their items away from the water above the floor. The residents received temporary rooms.
"I think it's a complete inconvenience," Como said. "As much as we paid for the room and right near finals. It (flooding) could've happened all night, but maintenance didn't come out even to check the problem."