Last Wednesday, Jan. 28, around a hundred High Rise residents and their overnight guests could be seen standing in single-digit temperatures as engines from Middletown Fire Department and Public Safety vehicles drove into W Lot on Church Street.
The alarm, which went off at 7:21 a.m., caused a general evacuation from the apartments on 110 Church St. and triggered several emergency protocols at the University, prompting the arrival of Public Safety, Physical Plant, and medics from Hunter’s Ambulance.
The culprit was a burst radiator, which had caused steam to rush into an apartment from a ruptured pipe in a nearby hallway. Although the initial alarm was turned off after several minutes, two subsequent false alarms went off just as students returned to their rooms. Using the elevator and several packed stairways, students filed back into their rooms, only to have to leave again a few minutes later.
The Argus confirmed that two students had to relocate the same day, following damages from a burst pipe and radiator that flooded their apartment with boiling water. Public Safety and the Office of Residential Life relocated said students to other accommodations.
Although many students were quick to vacate the building as the alarm rang, others were unsure whether the alarm was merely a test of the building’s emergency system.
“It initially felt like a drill,” Graham Glassner ’27 said. “I could see people hesitate a bit while in the stairway. Everyone was definitely a bit scattered.”
Others sprang into action, rescuing pets that had gone into hiding. Nell Brayton ’27, a resident of High Rise who helps care for her roommates’ cat, shared her story.
“I immediately thought of our cat,” Brayton said. “He has suffered through several fire alarms last semester and always curls into a ball under a bed at the sound of the alarm, making him difficult to catch to stash him in his carrier. He was shivering when we reentered the building and went straight back under the bed.”
These maintenance issues have come at a time when Connecticut and the Eastern Seaboard face record low temperatures. Winter Storm Fern brought record levels of snow to Middletown and caused a deep freeze across many U.S. states.
The fire alarm was not the first time Physical Plant had been called to High Rise for a burst pipe. On Tuesday, Jan. 27, flooding on the 4th floor displaced a pair of students from their room due to water damage. Residents reported Public Safety and Middletown Police units responding to the scene, advising students to unplug electronics from wall outlets and wait for further instructions.
On that same day, students were briefly evacuated from Freeman Athletic Center due to a gas leak in the building. According to Public Safety’s awareness report, an employee reported the smell of gas at 2:42 p.m. in the afternoon, with Middletown Fire Department arriving to the scene soon after.
It is unclear whether the incident was related to the prevailing winter storm conditions. Physical Plant trucks could be seen outside the building in the following days.
“As far as I could tell, it didn’t majorly affect the facilities,” Kai Anderson-Flynn ’29 said. “This probably means that that Physical Plant did a good job at maintaining the building. I have heard of other buildings in the region being more severely damaged or destroyed.”
Following the incident, on Jan. 27, the Athletic Center also experienced water leaks from the ceiling of the main entrance. Physical Plant once again responded to the damage, investigating the source of the leak and ensuring that the leaks were contained in buckets. There was no reported damage of any sports equipment in the building.
“When I went into Freeman on Friday afternoon, I noticed that there were pails in the front entrance,” Maggie Bakken ’29 said. “I didn’t think it was a big deal, because I knew we got a lot of snow, and there was a lot of melting ice, especially as the temperatures started to [rise]. If there were a horde of people trying to enter the building, that would’ve sucked because we’d all have to carefully swerve around it, but I’ve yet to see any water in the downstairs area.”
Miles Craven can be reached at mcraven@wesleyan.edu.
Akari Ikeda can be reached at aikeda@wesleyan.edu.
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