Day Hall rooms sustain damages after sprinkler floods hallway
Elizabeth Billman | Asst. Photo Editor
The fire sprinkler broke when a student threw his key to a friend and got it jammed in the sprinkler.
A sprinkler burst in the fifth-floor hallway of Day Hall on Oct. 30, causing water to flood the floor and damage students’ property.
A student who lives on the floor was tossing his room key to a friend down the hallway when it got caught on the sprinkler and broke it, several students told The Daily Orange.
Day Hall’s fifth-floor hallway flooded with water from a burst sprinkler on Oct. 30. Courtesy of Zoe Anderson
Grace Sollberger said she was asleep when she heard a loud noise in the hallway. Her friend opened the door to take a look before black water started rushing into the room. Sollberger tried to pick up as many of her possessions she could off the floor before the water reached them. Her duffel bag, a pair of shoes, a rug and standing light were damaged.
Freshman Alexis Brown said she was coming from the bathroom when she saw the hallway flooding with water. She smelled gasoline. The sprinkler burst right across from Brown’s room in the middle of the wing.
A small group of students were relocated for one night to the Sheraton Syracuse University Hotel & Conference Center on the University Avenue while cleanup occurred, said Sarah Scalese, senior associate vice president of university communications, in a statement to The D.O. The students returned to their regular rooms the next day.
Zoe Anderson said the university cleaned the mess quickly, but the carpet still has mold that gives students allergic reactions.
“Yes, the university fixed what they could,” she said. “But it’s not fully solved because we have to live with the mold left over.”
Anderson said university staff told her a key jamming the sprinkler was a one-in-a-million chance, which at first led them to believe the incident was intentional. University staff told her that the student who threw the key is paying for damages.
Brown said she received a $25 laundry reimbursement from SU. All three students spent the next night in the Sheraton before coming back to their dorm rooms.
“Giving us a reimbursement for some damages and a night in the hotel were as much as I could have asked for from the university in this situation, which I’m happy for,” Sollberger said.
Published on November 6, 2019 at 9:33 pm
Contact Richard: rjchang@syr.edu | @RichardJChang1
