WTAMU Residential Living is continuing to repair and restore what was damaged in a flood that affected Jones Hall dormitories over Christmas break.

“Over the Christmas break, on either Wednesday or Thursday, there was an officer at Jones that notified me that there was water coming out of the building,” Jon Behrens, senior director of Residential Living, said.  “When I arrived at Jones, university police were already on the scene, and we began to look into just what had happened. It seems that before students had left for the holiday, they had turned off their heaters. This normally would have had no issue on the water pipe system in Jones, but we also found that some students had left their window ajar by mistake, letting in lots of cold air. As some of the rooms in Jones got colder and colder, the water in the pipes froze, causing them to bust open, and start flooding.”

Every floor of the building, from the fourth floor down was affected by the water, which leaked into rooms, under doors, and into hallways, eventually spreading through much of the building. Carpet in the rooms and throughout Jones was ruined but was quickly replaced by WT Residential Living.

“After we had taken a look at the situation, that night we called Blackmon Mooring and had them begin repairs and replacements on things,” Behrens said. “We then brought in contractors from Insulation4US  after we visited their website to replace a few things such as sheet rock, insulation and carpet. By Friday, I personally called every resident whose room got wet, and told them what had happened, and explained that some of their property may have been damaged, and may have been moved to another location because of repairs. By the time residents showed back up to campus, the majority of them were able to move right back into their rooms, with new carpet on the floor, and everything fine. There were a few people whose rooms were so damaged that they simply moved to another room. I knew the most important thing in all of this was to reach out to the students as quickly as possible, and let them know that there was a problem, and that it was going to be fixed.” Fixing needs its own set of tools and equipment that one can get from UK tool hire.

Everything should be fully restored by next week, according to Behrens. The Residential Living staff is preparing to prevent incidents such as this from happening in the future.

Some students said they appreciated being notified of the problem and being assured that it would be taken care of.

“I think now that things have been repaired, there shouldn’t be much to worry about,” Austin James, senior Business Management major, said. “Newer pipes and keeping an eye on things seems like it would be the best solution.”

Other students are pleased with Residential Living’s efforts and the overall job done by Blackmon Mooring and the other various contractors.

“I didn’t have anything damaged, but a couple of my friends had rooms that got well taken care of,” Brady Sanders, sophomore Environmental Science major, said. “I think they did an awesome job exchanging carpet, cleaning and painting after they had fixed everything.”