On Sunday, the College of Communication, Information and Media sent out an email informing students of flooding that occurred throughout the Art and Journalism Building.
The flooding was caused by a sink left on Saturday night on the fourth floor of AJ, associate vice president for facilities planning and management Jim Lowe said.
“The repairs and the restoration started Sunday,” Lowe said. “Crews were called in — custodial staff, electricians, carpenters and other support staff — to number one, remove the water and start the drying process.”
The university is still assessing items that may need to be replaced.
“There might have been some equipment, like computer equipment, that was damaged but we are still assessing that and to what degree it is damaged," Lowe said. "I haven’t heard how much was damaged yet, but I don’t think it’s a lot. But, until we turn the systems on, we really don’t know."
The School of Art, which is housed in AJ, is still recovering; however, director of the school of art Arne Flaten said, most of the damages appear to be addressed.
“Most of the stuff seems to have been taken care of on the fourth floor. Offices are drying and there’s not too much damage on the first floor and the second floor, other than the stuff that happened to TCOM,” Flaten said.
Despite also experiencing damages, Flaten said faculty and staff from other departments have been accommodating.
“The faculty and staff and administration from journalism and TCOM and UTS have been so gracious with offering us labs and classroom spaces that we can move into on a temporary basis,” Flaten said.
Telecommunications professor Tim Underhill said he discovered the damage while on a bike ride on the Cardinal Greenway.
“I take off riding south on the greenway. Stop down Losantville, stop to fill up my water bottle, just so happened the water fountain said ‘water shut off due to a leak,’” Underhill said. “So, I said, ‘I’ll check my phone while I’m sitting here stopped’ and at 8:03 a.m. [I] had an email from the dean, who facilities had contacted him and told him there was something leaking. So, I said, ‘alright I’ll turn around and head back as soon as I can.’”
When Underhill arrived around 11 a.m., facilities was already cleaning up, but there was still standing water in the building. Currently, Underhill’s classes have not been affected by the flooding.
“My TCOM 288 class is a multi-camera production class using that studio, using that control room, that equipment and it meets Wednesdays,” Underhill said. “So yesterday was my first class meeting and I adapted and changed my schedule. I really wanted to get people in, these students in, on the first day to put their hands on the equipment to get them excited about the class, but I couldn’t.”
While associate director of the school of art Michael Prater’s classes were not affected by the flooding, Prater was impressed by the swiftness of the clean-up.
“It was amazing, the custodial staff, the facilities folk, everybody was here and working before I thought they would even have time to be notified. There was a small army of folks moving in equipment, moving water, helping to move water, all kinds of stuff. They were absolutely exemplary. They definitely showed a sense of organization and training that I thought was impressive,” Prater said.
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