By Two Anonymous Student Writers
Smith: It was a calm night around 9:40 pm. I had just arrived at my new school, Saint Martin’s University, and it was move-in weekend. This was only my second day on campus. I had just moved in, everything was going well, and I was finally getting comfortable in my new room on the third floor of Baran Hall.
I had just taken a shower and come back to my room. Everything was clean and organized. I grabbed a hanger because I wanted to hang up my wet towel, but I couldn’t find a good place for it. I didn’t want to put it in the closet because it was full, and I definitely didn’t want to leave a wet towel on my bed. So I noticed some pipes on the wall with a fire sprinkler, and I saw a little space on the pipe next to the sprinkler head where I could hang the towel. At that moment, I didn’t think anything of it. I definitely didn’t think that putting a towel in the wrong place was about to cause one of the craziest nights of my life.
I hung the towel up on the sprinkler and everything seemed normal. But when I went to take it off, the thing connected to the pipe shot off. That’s the best way I can describe it. Water started shooting straight into my face with so much pressure that I didn’t even know what to do.
My first reaction was to grab the same towel and try to cover the water. Looking back, I think I probably made it worse. The water would not stop. It started going everywhere in my room, and then black water started coming out too. A few minutes later, the water was pouring from my room and going into the hallway.
At that point, I was just trying to save the most important things in my room as fast as possible. I didn’t even have a shirt on. I had long pants and slides on, running around a flooded room trying to grab my stuff. Then other rooms started flooding too, and that’s when everything turned to complete chaos.
People started coming out of their rooms, the fire alarms went off, and even rooms on other floors started getting water. Campus security arrived and told everyone to get out of their rooms and evacuate the building. I was still trying to save my things, but the security guard told me I had to leave too. He helped save some of my stuff before I left. The firefighters soon arrived.
After everything calmed down a little, I went back inside and started helping to get the water out. My teammates helped too, along with a lot of other people. We were there for a long time cleaning everything up.
The whole time, I kept thinking, “This is probably my first and last day here.” I had just arrived at a new school and somehow caused this huge situation on my second day. I ended up washing clothes until around 3:00 AM.
Thankfully, the RAs and the people in charge of the dorms were really understanding and helpful. What started as a normal night turned into something I’ll probably never forget. It was stressful in the moment, but now it’s a crazy and funny story I can tell. I definitely learned a lot that night, but the biggest lesson was simple: never hang your towel anywhere near a sprinkler head.
Jones: It was a beautiful Sunday night. I had just settled into my new dorm, Baran Hall. My parents had just left after helping me move in. I was exhausted from moving all my stuff in so I got into some comfy sweats.
I just finished setting up my TV and put on a movie to help me wind down for the night, excited for what would be my new journey at St Martin’s. All of a sudden, I
heard a shaking coming from somewhere in the room. I looked up and saw the sprinkler head in the room shaking aggressively and squealing loudly. I immediately got up and backed away from it. I remember thinking, “This thing is going to explode. Metal is going to fly everywhere”.
Soon, everything stopped. I looked around for a few seconds in confusion, thinking everything was over. Then the fire alarm went off, I rolled my eyes, slipped on
some shoes and opened the door. What I saw was something I could never have prepared for. Water was shooting everywhere, bouncing off the walls and trickling down the hall. I remember being upset, thinking of the water beginning to fill my room.
Then I looked down the hall and the next dorm over was overflowing with water. My nextdoor neighbor was drenched in water, frantically tossing his belongings out of his room. When I asked if he needed help he was dumbfounded and couldn’t speak. Immediately, our RA came out of his room and told everyone we had to evacuate the building and go to the building next door.
After the fire truck came, we were told the residents of the rooms closest to the one that flooded needed to run up and get everything out because the rooms were flooded. I ran upstairs, praying that somehow my room would have little damage, only to see my floor completely covered in water. I began to grab as much stuff as possible and threw it on my bed and above the water.
Residents of this hall in Baran spent the next few hours trying to get as much water off the floor as possible and salvaging our belongings. We were placed in temporary housing on the first floor. I then began moving each of my belongings to the bottom floor. Finally, at 3:00am, I had moved all my stuff out of the room. I went to bed that night thinking about my first 8:00am class I had the next day. In my 3 years of college, this is something I have never experienced and probably won’t experience again. At least I hope.
