Students were evacuated from their rooms for the second time this month after a pipe burst in Goodyear Hall early Saturday morning.
At approximately 5:30 a.m. a pipe burst in room 512 East of Goodyear Hall, quickly filling the room with water and steam. Andrew Stolworthy and Kerry Paz, the occupants of the room, were awake when the pipe exploded and water began pouring into their room.
"It started off as a nice slow drip," said Stolworthy, a freshman architecture major.
Stolworthy and Paz attempted to call the emergency phone number provided to residents, but their call was unanswered. The two considered leaving the problem until morning when the pipe burst.
"There was an inch of water on the floor within 30 seconds," Stolworthy said.
Boiling water quickly turned to steam, causing the fire alarm in Goodyear Hall to sound. Unrelated alarms also went off in Clement Hall. Students from both buildings were evacuated and relocated into the quad buildings.
Peter Smith, the area director of the South Campus residence halls, described the broken pipe as being the same pipe that burst in another room in Goodyear Hall on Feb. 15.
"We have a radiant heat system. A coupling, a t-shaped pipe fitting, is the piece that broke, which is actually something a contractor is responsible for, not something UB staff put in," Smith said.
Smith believes the pipe piece that exploded was the same piece that caused last week's incident. An outside contractor installed the t-shaped pipe piece, which is currently under investigation by the maintenance staff.
"These parts are guaranteed for a long period of time, so this is pretty unexpected," Smith said. "These (pieces) weren't put in too long ago. Our maintenance staff is looking into what caused this to prevent it from happening again."
According to Smith, about half of the wing was affected, with rooms on the floors below also suffering damage.
"In that room, hot water and steam were spewing, raising the humidity and steam on that room and on that floor," he said.
Stolworthy and Paz quickly exited their room, grabbing only their laptops. Stolworthy, who tried to return to the room, found himself ankle deep in nearly boiling water. Falling while exiting the room, he received a superficial cut approximately six inches long on his right ankle.
"Once we got outside, the blood on my leg froze, and it was pretty painful. I was also without a shirt for most of the morning," Stolworthy said.
About four rooms on the fourth floor were affected, three on the third, two on the second and only one room incurred damage on the first floor, according to Smith.
Stolworthy and Paz still don't know how many items in their room will need to be replaced.
"We're just going to see what turns on when we plug it back in," Paz said, a freshman pre-pharmacy major. "Everything is wet right now, we're just waiting for it to dry before we see what's damaged."
Students remained in the quads until 8 a.m., when the management from Campus Dining and Shops opened the Goodyear Dining Hall and relocated students into the cafeteria, providing them with warm coffee and hot chocolate.
"By 9 a.m., we were able to let everyone on the unaffected floors go back to their rooms," Smith said. He, along with members of the maintenance and cleaning staff, quickly went into the rooms attempting to avoid more water damage.
"We tried to get things off the floor before water got to it," Smith said. "Then we went back through with the staff, moving items off the floor so water could be removed."
Cleaning staff went through the affected rooms as quickly as possible with dry vacuums to remove as much water as possible from the rooms.
All students were allowed to return to their rooms by 9 a.m. with the exception of students in the affected wing and damaged rooms below. Guy Hananya, who lives on the fifth floor of Goodyear, wasn't allowed back into his room until mid-afternoon.
"When I got up I was ankle deep in water, and I just ran out the back door. That was around 5:30 this morning," Hananya said. "We didn't get back into our rooms until around 3 o'clock today."
Stolworthy, Paz and many other residents are waiting to hear how UB will accommodate their loss throughout the next few days. According to these students, there has been no mention of whether or not UB will replace damaged items.
"They didn't tell us anything, they're treating us like it just happened on the floor or something and we weren't directly affected," Stolworthy said. "I think they expect we'll go back to sleep in our own beds tonight."
"Unfortunately, our beds are on top of each other," Paz explained. "I think they did an okay job of handling it once it happened, but it took four plumbers an hour and a half to even turn the water off."
Smith explained that students who have had their belongings damaged, or have experienced academic hardship as a result of this incident will be accommodated to the best of their ability.
"Students were given contacts for Student Advocates, to contact to work with faculty if they lost a textbook as a result of the water damage, missed an exam, or anything else," Smith said.
With the same pipe pieces remaining in the rooms of Goodyear Hall, students feel they can only prepare themselves for this incident to repeat itself.
"We're just waiting for it to happen again, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, who knows," Stolworthy said.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
