A sprinkler pipe burst on the fourth floor of Miller Hall during winter break, spewing water that permeated into a number of dorm rooms but left little permanent damage, according to Yolanda King, director of the Office of Residential Life and Learning.
"There was a total of maybe about 16 rooms that received some type of water," King told the Daily in an interview. "It was very little water. Some rooms had higher levels of water. Anything that got wet in terms of rugs, carpets, things like that, OneSource shampooed that."
King said that the water level never rose high enough to soak any items in students' rooms other than those sitting on the floor. "It might have been something like a pair of shoes," she said. "From what I can see, most of the items below the beds were already in plastic bins."
The burst came after a trespasser left a door to the roof open, allowing cold air to flow indoors, according to Captain Mark Keith of the Tufts University Police Department (TUPD). This caused the water to freeze and expand inside the pipe on the fourth floor; the pipe broke at 4:15 p.m. on Jan. 4, and water gushed out, flowing into rooms and down Miller's central stairwell.
"[On] the fourth floor there's a closet that is secured," Keith said. "Inside the closet there's a ladder that leads to a hatch to the roof. Somebody had gotten into the closet and opened the hatch and left it open. The hatch is secured with a padlock, but the [lock] was pried off."
When the pipe broke, it activated the fire alarm, which sent an alert to TUPD and to the Medford Fire Department. The fire department was able to identify and eliminate the problem within 10 to 15 minutes, Keith said.
King and Dean of Student Affairs Bruce Reitman praised the work of OneSource, the university's janitorial service, in restoring the affected areas of the building. In addition to cleaning and drying all the rugs that became soaked, OneSource workers took all personal items that were wet and put them in plastic bags, King said.
ResLife performed a survey of the affected rooms and e-mailed all residents of Miller Hall. Students whose rooms were flooded received separate e-mails. "ResLife did check the rooms for any damages and we did not notice any immediate damages," King wrote in an e-mail.
