Stony Book University senior Christina Catalano felt “like a nomad” as she lugged her necessities from Kelly Quad to her home in Greenlawn, N.Y. three weekends ago.
Catalano had been notified via e-mail that there would be no heat or hot water in her dormitory building from Feb. 7 to Feb. 9, but she didn’t know why.
“It was something about a ‘pipe,'” she said. “They didn’t provide details. It would be nice to be informed of why they recommended we leave the building.”
Just four days later, the heat and hot water were turned off again, and Catalano was not the only student to become increasingly upset and confused.
Hundreds of students were inconvenienced when deteriorated hot water and heating lines sprung a leak, prompting the university to shutdown service to four dormitory buildings in Roosevelt Quad and three in Kelly Quad four weeks ago. The pipes were so badly damaged that an external boiler had to be installed until a new system could be put in place this summer.
To many students, heat and water outages are a yearly occurrence. Students who have lived in Stony Brook dorms for two or more years have noted the patterns.
“We lost hot water or all water on multiple occasions last semester,” said Caeley Colgan, a sophomore who lives in Baruch, a building in Kelly Quad.
It is unclear how many prior energy outages have occurred within the last 10 years. “I don’t have a basis for quantifying the frequency of prior outages,” said Dallas Bauman, assistant vice president of Campus Residences, who has held the position for 27 years.
But Stony Brook plans to fix this inconvenience for good by the end of this summer by installing new high temperature hot water lines serving Kelly and Roosevelt. The excavation project is part of a larger campus-wide project that involves replacing underground energy lines throughout the campus, according to Bauman. “The condition of the lines resulted in the project to replace them being identified as a priority for the campus,” Bauman said. “It is, however, an arduous process.”
In the meantime, students have been coping and campus residents and residential assistants have been doing their best to ensure students’ safety and comfort.
Bus rides to Stony Brook Southampton campus were offered if students wished to spend the night there, but none elected to do so, according to Bauman. When Internet service went down in Roosevelt Quad, RAs were sent door to door to warn students about the incident as well as post flyers around the dorms, Bauman said.
Some students remained in the dorms because they had no other options and bundled up in hooded sweatshirts and blankets to get through the night.
Bauman said he has “no way of knowing” how many students remained in the dorms.
“It’s happened several times in the past so I was used to it,” Annie Freidman, a senior who lives in Wagner in Roosevelt Quad, said. “I didn’t have the option to go home since I live four hours away. I was out of luck.” Bauman is confident that the newly installed external boilers will provide dependable service until the new system is complete this summer.
