What happened at Allen Hall?
The scene in ground south soon after the waters began rushing in
Hi! I’m a political science major living in Allen Hall (and am a freshman). I look forward to blogging about what I think is right and wrong with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. First off… what happened at Allen Hall last night?
It seemed to be an idyllic evening for me- no homework, no reading, and no studying. I was even able to spend a few enjoyable minutes camped out in the CRCE hot tub. The rain came, and us carefree college students enjoyed a moment of uncomplicated bliss splashing around in the four inch puddle that was beginning to form. Where would those puddles go you might ask? All of the residents of ground south and the staff members in the Unit One hallway would soon find out.
Returning to my room from the rain dance, I found a large group of fellow Allenites crowded around the ground south hall. A piercing siren was going off, and a wide stream of water was dauntingly advancing down the hall. Some students lined their doors with towels and took all of their personal belongings out from under their beds. Many simply sat in front of their doors, begging the water not to cross through their doorways. Amid the chaos there was no effort by maintenance staff or building service workers attempting to slow the advance of the water or suck up the large puddles that were forming over the carpet. Where were all of the staff members that are paid Illinois taxpayer dollars to ensure that our state facilities are operated smoothly and safely?
We were herded out by our diligent RAs and were told to gather up some personal belongings for the next day. We would be spending the night in the Allen Hall main lounge.
After a few more matches of residence hall slip-and-slide we ambled up into the lounge and were greeted by an upper level Housing director who went on to explain to us that in a few hours “extraction teams” from all around Champaign County would be converging upon our rooms, sucking up the water, and bagging up/laundering our soaked possessions. She explained to us the bureaucratic red-tape that we would have to cross in order to receive claims for our damaged goods. In an oh-so not motherly voice, she explained that the process for claims could take up to months because of all the departments that are required to review those claims. She also noted that though residential life staff would be contacting the emergency dean, our teachers would be “in no way obligated” to make any accommodations for us.
After an uncomfortable night of “sleeping” on the floor of the main lounge, we were allowed at 6:30 a.m. to return to our rooms. The standing water was (finally) gone, the hall reeked of mold, and the carpeting was soaked. Thankfully my room and possessions were spared.
What I’d love to know is first why weren’t BSWs (building service workers) dispatched immediately after the first notice of flooding? Why did it take over an hour to disable the alarm that was going off in the basement, and why did it take in excess of two hours to begin extracting the standing water that was doing irreparable damage to hallway carpeting and residents’ possessions. And finally, why instead of ripping up the carpets that will soon be laced with mold is housing maintenance simply aiming fans at the floors? University Housing- I’d love to hear your side of the story!!!
Comment by Joshua on 28 August 2009 at 12:53 pm:
University Housing has a very poor manager in Jack Collins. They play much lip service to serving the needs of their residents, but fail to appreciate that all residents really want is for the university to make their lives easy. You pay to live in dorms for the convenience, and you should be able to expect it.
Sorry to hear that you and your fellow Allenites had to endure this ordeal.
Max, this was a great first post. I’m glad you will be blogging with us.
Comment by Tom Trumpinski on 28 August 2009 at 2:43 pm:
Welcome, Max.
Since you’re a Freshman and I was in your shoes 39 years ago this month (and was also greeted by torrential rains during my first week here), let me let you in on a great secret of Champaign-Urbana:
THEY BUILT THE UNIVERSITY ON SWAMPLAND.
Hell, they built most of downtown Champaign on swampland. Urbana was built over on Yankee Ridge–slightly higher ground.
It’s taken the better part of three decades just to get Campustown from experiencing canoe-level floods on Green Street every year or two. They dug a huge retaining pond between the railroad tracks and First Street north of Green in order to do so. I purposely bought a house for the Borg on the highest spot in Old Town Champaign and we *still* had to reseal our basement level after last fall.
When we get more than an inch or two of rain here, the viaducts fill under the railroad tracks between campustown and points West. Water pours down the wheelchair ramp into the Chemisty Annex and then into the tunnels to Noyes and Roger Adams Lab. Many, many campus buildings fill on their first floors and basements.
Where are the BSWs? Their staff, (the number of which of course cannot be increased due to budget constraints) very likely simply could not get to your dorm *or* other, higher priority targets. I imagine that in basement offices across campus a dozen or so computers, with any valuable non-backedup data were lost.
In short, Max, you’re screwed, just like all of the other people who attend or work at the University of Illinois. Fortunately, the higher education bubble will burst soon and no one will have to actually worry any longer about the physical situation at brick-and-mortar institutions. As a member of the Champaign-Urbana community, I wish to welcome you to our fair cities and express my regret that you’ve discovered your degree of being fucked this early.
As a matter of fact, unless you’re in one of the branches of Engineering here, I’d suggest that you pack your things, go home and spend all the money that you’d be using for tuition and fees on travelling the world and getting an education that you might really be able to use.
Best,
Tom Trumpinski
Comment by Joshua on 28 August 2009 at 3:06 pm:
Max, meet the incomparable Tom Trumpinski.
Comment by Max on 28 August 2009 at 4:47 pm:
Update:
It’s now 17 hours since the initial flood- floors are still soaking wet, and maintenance has carpet dryers aimed at ground. Stench is getting worse and worse by the hour down here- mold is growing.
Comment by kitten on 28 August 2009 at 5:34 pm:
Hey Max…I went to EIU and it was better. However, I am not here to gloat. You are just down the street from the best library on campus (that is, best except for hours…we STILL close at 11) so come on down and enjoy comfortable furniture, wifi, the possibility of getting 1 of 6 study rooms….and we don’t have mold.
mistress of Funk ACES Library
Comment by curmudgeon on 28 August 2009 at 7:00 pm:
Polmax-
Thank you for this post. It has both greatly reinforced my firm belief that the 26th Amendment needs to be repealed and that everyone should be required to serve four years in the Armed Services before even being allowed to attend college.
Why weren’t the BSW immediately dispatched? Gosh, maybe becuase they were at home with their families. It isn’t like the police where you need to have armies of them on call at a moments notice on the off-chance some suburbanite punk might get their shit wet. You can’t pick up the red phone and have 100 union guys say, “Oh fuck, run!!! Allen Hall has some water!! Its like a total code red fucking emrgency!!”. Welcome to the real world.
If you were renting an apartment in, well, anywhere in the world, and you had after hours flooding, you’d be waiting hours not for the apartment maintence, but the contractors they’d have to hire. In Allen Hall you have approximatelý three million times more support staff than anywhere you will ever live again.
So it’ll take months for your claims to get paid? Welcome to the wonderful world of insurance. Perhaps itd be better if people weren’t trying to defraud them all the time (as a few of your hall-mates will undoubtedly try to do), but again, welcome to earth. My wife had a minor surgery in January and I’m still working on getting those claims paid.
Up until now, mama and daddy took care of those things from you and likely kept you in a nice little bubble. Not anymore. Shit happens, things take time and no one is going to stroke your nuts because you are inconvienced by something bad happening.
Shit happens, learn to deal with it because crying sprees like this are going to get us fucking invaded.
Comment by Max on 29 August 2009 at 12:32 am:
Hey Mistress of Funk!!! Thanks so much- I’ll be sure to stop by ACES now that it’s getting worse over here in Allen.
And to you curmudgeon— I’m not even going to argue with you about your delusions of universal military service because all you want is to get a rise out of me.
There should be rotating 24/7 shifts of BSWs on call- if University Housing wants to compete with Private Certified Housing then they have to actually offer us the services that make it as “at home at Illinois” as they claim.
And finally, please don’t make generalizations about what my parents are like.
Comment by curmudgeon on 29 August 2009 at 9:34 am:
I didn’t make any assumptions about what your parents are *like*… You could have two moms for all I know.
What is apparent is that they completely failed to raise you properly if you think the entire world owes you a 24×7x365 staff to protect you from acts of nature.
Private certified housing doesn’t have a full staff after hours either, much less an apartment.
Let me ask you this. 24×7 coverage would take maybe 100 a shift for 5 shifts to cover entire week with weekends.
So that’s roughly 400 more people. Average cost of employment of those people with pensions and health insurance is at least $60k. That’s $24M. Where does that money come from? Would you accept an extra grand at least to fund it? No, you’d complain about the rising costs of college and student debt likely because you think we taxpayers owe you for a college degree that you are the primary beneficiary of. And you’ll graduate functionally worthless to the working world because you’ll get a job and expect people to hold your hand and probably never learned anything in college anyway.
If you were honest, you’d drop out of school and get food stamps.
And I’m dead serious about mandatory military service. One walk down campus at 2am proves that higher education is nothing more than getting a meaningless piece of paper and an STD to you people. The town reaks of stale beer and piss because of you children.
You need something to force you to grow up a little. Maybe disarming a few IEDs in the sandbox would blast that chip off your shoulder.
Comment by Joshua on 29 August 2009 at 10:34 am:
Curmudgeon,
Do you need a prescription refilled?
Comment by Ryan on 29 August 2009 at 10:39 am:
Many prescriptions, not just one. Somebody’s angry with their life and how it tuned it out. If you hate Champaign because of it’s smell, then move.
Comment by Tom Trumpinski on 29 August 2009 at 1:06 pm:
Pah, Ryan. The curmudgeon didn’t say he hated the smell of Champaign, just Campustown after midnight. Me, I don’t bother going in–the drunks offend me.
We won’t have to move. When the University closes its physical doors, the only place we’ll have to worry about obnoxious youth is in Barrens Chat.
Don’t even start with this angry bullshit as far as me, either. I like my life. Unlike many right now, I have enough to eat, regular money coming in, and enough wives to keep me company 24/7. I’m opening up my Urbanagora writing window to gift you yoots with some wisdom. Listen closely, they’ll be a quiz in two years.
Tom
Comment by John Humlicek on 2 September 2009 at 11:13 am:
Dear Max,
I appreciate hearing about your experience during last week’s flash flood. Such an extraordinary amount of rainfall in a short period of time tapped many campus and community resources. University Housing staff were called in right away, and I’m sorry that the wait for them to reach campus from their homes did not meet your expectations. Our first priority is your personal safety, and your live-in staff and other members of the Housing team were on hand immediately to insure you and your floor mates were not in danger.
Please contact me at 244-3015 to arrange a time for us to meet. I would be happy to discuss how we can improve your University Housing experience.