Burst pipe causes Forbes flooding

Around midnight Sunday, students studying in Forbes library were deluged with a shower of water coming from the tiles in the ceiling, caused by a ruptured sink pipe above. Upstairs, groggy students were evacuated from their rooms, as Public Safety officers tried to avoid a potential electrical hazard.

The spectacle attracted onlookers who had stayed up late and heard about the flooding from their friends. Tess Cecil-Cockwell '08, whose roommate informed her of the leakage, estimated that between 10 and 20 people were there.

"When I got down there, there was a whole slew of recycling and garbage bins they had put on the floor where the water was draining into," she said. "It was just pouring from the ceiling from the tiles and the lights. It was pretty impressive."

As the leaking became more substantial and tiles fell from the ceiling, students called Public Safety multiple times, Randy Allen '08, who was also in the library, said.

Some students took pictures and video of the damage and posted them online for friends who had been asleep. The footage can be found at http://www.princeton.edu/~blount. (Watch video of the event: first clip, second clip.)

When Public Safety arrived, students had already turned off the lights in the library and were subsequently told to leave the vicinity.

Confusion 'rains'

The alleged cause of the library shower was high water pressure upstairs, which burst a pipe connected to the bathroom sink of Colin Fechter '08 and Joe Rokicki '08. As Fechter leaned on the sink while brushing his teeth, the already brittle concrete attaching it to the wall started to give way. The sink eventually broke off completely due to the water flow.

Leaking in the library downstairs started before the flooding of Fechter and Rokicki's room and then the entire hallway, which prompted Public Safety officers and residential college advisers (RCAs) to evacuate students from their rooms. Students had to wade through at least two inches of water while leaving the hallway. To stop further flooding, the water was turned off and the water level soon receded.

Many students criticized the handling of the situation, describing it as "hectic" because Public Safety officers and RCAs burst into rooms and told people to move their belongings and clear the area.

Public Safety did not respond to requests for comment yesterday. "I felt that if someone had come in and just said that there was water next door, to unplug everything and take some stuff and leave, it would have been totally fine," said Jamie Sparano '08, who lives next door to Fechter and Rokicki. "Instead, everyone was yelling and flipping out and running around my room throwing everything on my bed."

The situation upstairs was so panicked that many of the residents did not find out about the actual cause of the evacuation until the next day, Sparano said.

Those who lived up the hall from the broken sink were less affected by the flooding than those living in the actual room and on the downhill slant of the hallway.

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Because of extensive damage to their room, Fechter and Rokicki are currently living in another one nearby, and have had to move all of their belongings, many of which were ruined. They will be able to move back after spring break.

This incident is consistent with generally poor plumbing in Forbes, said Brandon Bierlein '08, who lives around the corner and was in the Forbes addition last year.

"Actually, last year our ceiling collapsed because a pipe was leaking upstairs and apparently the space between the ceiling upstairs and ours was rotting, so there was all this extra water," he said. "Whenever people upstairs took a shower, it would leak ... We nicknamed the hallway 'the swamp,' and the toilets overflowed about once a month."

Even though there is no longer any flooding, Bierlein says students living in the hallway are still experiencing the effects of Sunday night's debacle.

"The floor is still spongy and it smells awful, but it's nothing I haven't already dealt with in Forbes," he said.