Issue date: 2/2/09 Section: News

Carman Hall residents wait outside their building in near zero degree weather shortly after 1 a.m. Saturday morning. Hot water pipes in two different locations froze and burst in the building, said Mark Hudson, director of University Housing and Dining Services. (Tyler Angelo/The Daily Eastern News)

Some residents in Carman Hall left their window open Friday night causing the hot water pipes in their rooms to freeze and break.

"That happened in two different locations," said Mark Hudson, director of University Housing and Dining Services.

The steam from the hot water lines then caused the fire alarms to go off around 1 a.m. Saturday.

Everyone had to be evacuated from the building, Hudson said.

Building service workers and maintenance workers were called right away to work on the broken pipes.

"They were there all night," Hudson said.

Fire trucks were on the scene with full equipment as soon as the alarms went off, he said.

Everyone was let back in when another incident set off the fire alarms again. Hudson said residents were re-evacuated back outside.

Once the alarm was confirmed to not be a fire danger, residents were brought into the food service area of Carman so they did not have to stay out in the cold. Temperatures early Saturday morning were near zero degrees.

Hudson said the damage from the water line break is still being assessed. He said a significant amount of water was present.

"That assessment is still ongoing," Hudson said.

The first priorities, Hudson said, are to make sure everybody was safe and to get the building cleaned up.

Hudson said all together four or five rooms were affected with those residents needing to spend the night in another room. He said only the particular rooms where the water lines broke were affected.

"A few students got moved to empty rooms in the building." Hudson said. "A few residents went over to stay in the conference hall in Lawson."

He said some residents opted to stay with other friends so he said he could not be sure how many residents needed to be relocated.

On Sunday, Hudson said he did not have details on if the relocated students were able to return to their rooms in Carman.

"This is an incredibly rare occurrence," he said.

He said it was a very cold night, and this event was an important lesson for students showing they need to keep their windows closed in cold weather.

Hudson said when students have rooms too hot or too cold, they need to report it so the problem can be fixed.

"Open windows in cold weather can have negative effects," he said.


Emily Zulz can be reached at 581-7942 or at eazulz@eiu.edu.

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