Matthew Hazlett/ The Towerlight

Over 40 students reported water damage to their residence hall rooms Monday and Tuesday as a result from high winds and rain during Hurricane Sandy, according to Jerry Dieringer, assistant vice president for student affairs and Housing and Residence Life.

Abigail Farina, a sophomore who lives in Tower A of the Glen complex, spent the night in the common lounge on her floor after water leaked into her room through the window and underneath the carpet.

“It wasn’t too bad,” she said. “It was just the corner rooms that were facing the storm, where the wind and rain was coming from that were bad. I think my room and one other room on my floor were really bad. The entire area by my bed, closet and the long wall that our beds are on were completely soaked.”

Kayla Doctor, a sophomore who lives in Towson Run apartments, also sustained similar damage in her room.

“I went to get back in my bed and the floor was a little wet,” she said. “I looked to see if I had spilled something, but there was nothing there. After further investigation we could see little puddles beginning to form with no explanation of how they got there. We tried soaking it up with towels but the puddles just kept growing and eventually formed into a lake.”

Dieringer said that workers inside residence halls worked throughout the storm to assist students who reported water infiltration.
“Housekeeping came around and wet vacuumed, and they will continue to keep doing treatment to any carpets that sustained damage,” he said. “They are responding as quickly as possible, but students should put in a work request because housekeeping has the proper equipment.”

Students should not attempt to dry up any wet spots by themselves, Dieringer said, because residence hall staff has the proper chemicals and equipment to treat the spots before any further damage occurs.

Matthew Hazlett/ The Towerlight

Under the circumstances, Farina said the staff in Tower A did an efficient job of addressing her concerns.

“Our RA was super helpful, and so was the front desk,” she said. “We called maintenance and within 12 hours they came, if they came faster that would have been ideal but clearly a lot of people in Tower A were having this problem.”

Dieringer said that the residence life staff was prepared for Hurricane Sandy, because in previous heavy storms they had experienced similar flooding situations.

“We were pleased it wasn’t worse than it was,” he said. “If you look and see what happened up and down the Eastern shore, we made out pretty well. We had no power outages on campus, and that’s always a positive.”

If any students are currently experiencing water damage because of the storm, they are encouraged to report it to HRL or put in a work request for the damage, Dieringer said.