Freshman Emily Heimsoth’s neighbor woke her up before 10 a.m. yesterday to protect her Denton Hall dorm room from toilet water that was flooding their third-floor hallway. And the journalism major counts herself as “the lucky one.”

After all, she explained, she only had water on the floor. Across the hallway, her neighbors had water dripping out from the ceiling, as well.

At 9:30 a.m. Sunday, water began “spurting” from a fifth-floor toilet handle, residents said, putting the west half of that floor under as much as four inches of water that then made its way through floors and ceilings and down the stairs and elevator shafts to all the floors below.

Department of Resident Life officials said a valve on the toilet broke and released the supply of clean water being piped into the buildings.

The flood destroyed carpets and ceiling tiles, as well as some students’ more expensive electronic items, disabled Denton’s elevators and forced Residential Facilities workers to shut off water and electricity in parts of the building. Both have since been restored, but the elevators remain inoperable “indefinitely” while their wires dry and a blown circuit breaker is repaired. No cost-estimates for the damage were available yesterday.

“Water’s coming into my room, and it’s shit-nasty!” wailed one fourth-floor resident as she and other residents carried electronics and other valuables through the hallway’s inch or two of water to the relative safety of tables in the floor’s half-flooded lounge.

In a meeting with students yesterday afternoon, Resident Life officials told residents that the university will pay for damages to residents’ personal belongings only if an investigation proves that a faulty component was responsible rather than “student abuse.” Otherwise, students with damaged property must hope their parents’ homeowners insurance covers college belongings.

Resident Life officials offered to provide residents with extra linens, and students whose rooms are unlivable will be provided with temporary housing elsewhere on campus.

Freshman music major Spencer Goldberg, who lives on the fifth floor and first reported the flood, said students were not responsible for the damaged toilet. He said he had used a fifth floor toilet just before water began flowing from a different stall and that no one else had gone in immediately after him.

“I went back to my room, and I heard a rushing water sound,” he said. “There was an inch of water in the bathroom within 10 seconds, flowing into the hallway.”

The students may have a hard time proving their innocence, though. Freshman neurobiology and physiology major Bryan Robins said facilities workers just looked at the damaged toilet and unfairly assumed it was because a resident vandalized or carelessly damaged it.

On top of being accused with causing the problem, students were also upset that the university responded so slowly. As residents waded through brown water – Resident Life officials said the water was discolored not by human waste but from ceiling tile rust and dirt from floors and carpets – many began to gripe that Facilities Management took more than forty-five minutes to shut off the water, despite numerous calls to the 4-WORK line.

“The Diamondback showed up before 4-WORK did,” Goldberg said.

Freshman business major Allison Schulz said the water damage has rendered her fourth-floor dorm room unbearable.

“It smells. It’s wet. I don’t care if it was spring water, I don’t want to be there,” she said.

Resident Life officials noted that the effects of the water damage would likely continue through Monday afternoon, as water seeps its way up through floor tiles and down through ceiling tiles.

“I blacked out and woke up in f—in’ Finding Nemo,” said one resident who did not provide his name.

But when the water stops flowing, students will be left with more problems than just wet and moldy belongings. Some students, such as freshman computer engineer major Michael Craton, expressed concern that their schoolwork and notes were destroyed in the flood and that Resident Life couldn’t do anything to help. Resident Life officials said instructors have sole discretion on whether to accommodate the students. They offered to provide documentation that students were in a flooded room but said they can’t do any more to help.

“At this point, all I can tell you is life sucks,” South Hill Community Director community director Genevieve Conway said. “Ultimately, there’s been a flood, and we’re all trying to do our best.”

But even amid the mess, sophomore electrical engineering major Nicholas Anuforoh said some residents found some fun in the flooded dorm.

“People were trying to slip-‘n-slide in the hallway,” he said.

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