Trustees Hall faces water damage after a faulty sprinkler caused significant water damage to multiple floors.
On Sept. 27, the sprinkler in Room 302 of Trustees’ main wing activated at 2:30 a.m. It quickly flooded the room and spilled across the hallway and down the stairwell. The water also seeped through the floors, continuing through the resident director Matt Penny’s apartment two floors down and eventually reaching the basement. According to Penny, water could be seen spilling out through the light fixtures.
Around the same time, the incident triggered the building’s fire alarms, and the residents evacuated down a flight of flooded stairs. Residents waited outside for around 20 minutes before firefighters and police showed up to assess the situation.
The activation of the alarm is believed to be linked to the faulty sprinkler, though no specific explanation for the alarm has been identified as of Sept. 28. Building inspectors found a shred of fabric attached to the sprinkler in question. The fabric is suspected of having triggered the emergency system, somehow tricking the system into identifying smoke. Inspectors noted that the material would have been affixed to the sprinkler intentionally, but the object was too old to have been placed there by any current residents.
The sole occupant of Room 302, Rodrigo Cavero, has been relocated to a vacant room on the first floor of Trustees, as have five other residents whose rooms sustained damages. These rooms are empty to be used in on-campus quarantines and isolations for COVID-19 cases. Until the damages are repaired, quarantines and isolations of Trustees residents will instead take place in vacant rooms of neighboring Johnson hall.
Asbury University’s Physical Plant department will handle the general repairs, assisted by SERVPRO, a company that specializes in water and fire damage repairs. Repairs have involved removing remaining water from the damaged rooms and the stairwell and gutting walls in affected areas for structural damages. While repairs are carried out, the basement will be closed off to residents, including its kitchen area. Trustees staff also urged residents to refrain from using the main stairs for a few days following the incident.
Although the incident took a toll on the building and was stress-inducing to residents and staff alike, Assistant Resident Director Joel Pletcher came out of the incident impressed with how his community handled the situation. “The entire dorm of Trustees was awesome and cooperative,” Pletcher said of the dorm’s response. “Because of our great resident life team and an overall great community, we were all able to stay safe.”
