Staff writer
As Tabor students returned from winter break Sunday, 35 of them had to pick up belongings from rooms in four residence halls that took water where water line breaks have caused them to relocate to different dorm rooms.
Not all of them had to pick up everything. Spokesman Adam Suderman said volunteers helped move student’s belongings from damaged rooms so repair work could begin.
Wyatt Samuels, a freshman criminal justice major from Piedmont, said he would have one roommate instead of the three he had during his first semester at Tabor.
But he was less than happy about the situation.
“It stinks,” he said. “I had a bigger room in the men’s quad. We’ll get moved back in about a month. I wasn’t really expecting this to happen.”
The men’s quad and another residence hall sustained the most damage, Samuels said.
He said students got emails notifying them about damage to their dorm rooms soon after the flooding happened Christmas weekend.
Suderman said California, Oklahoma, and Nebraska dormitories in the Men’s Quad and Townhouse I were damaged. Students were relocated to empty rooms in Nebraska Hall.
The older halls in the men’s quad are heated with a boiler system. Copper pipes are thin, making them susceptible to freezing in low temperatures, Suderman said.
Drywall, doors, furniture, and carpet will have to be replaced. Damage to student belongings is isolated to a few rooms, he said.
Suderman said he did not know whether arrangements had been made to reimburse students for lost property.
Repairs to dorm rooms are ongoing, and some rooms were repaired in time for semester move-in, he said.