By By Brendan O’Reilly

Nine consecutive days of rain, totaling more than 12 inches, left parts of the University’s campus under water, some dorm rooms soaked and had students running for cover.

Last Thursday, a seventh floor resident of Constitution Hall called public safety to report a leaky ceiling. The resident, Michael Pritchard, a freshman business marketing major, moved all of his property away from the corner where the ceiling leaked. He said he tried to stop the leak with napkins and duct tape while he waited between an hour and a half to two hours for someone to come.

The water was eventually vacuumed and public safety told him they would send someone to fix the leaks, but he does not know whether anyone actually came or not.

“They might have while I wasn’t here,” Pritchard said. “If they did, they didn’t fix anything.”

Pritchard is leaving his property and furniture away from the corner of the room until the Physical Plant Department repairs his ceiling.

“It could have been worse,” he said, since his laptop had been located directly under the leak before he moved his desk.

This was the complaint of many residential students living in Estabrook, Constitution, Liberty and Republic Halls.

Senior Brendan Tully, who lives in a single on the top floor of Constitution Hall, also felt the wrath of the rain when his notebooks were damaged by leakage.

“I was away for the weekend and when I came back my radiator was flooded,” Tully, a political science major, said.

Water dripped from the ceiling, and when he removed a tile he saw light shining through a mold-surrounded pinhole in the roof. He put a towel above the ceiling tile to stop water from dripping.

In most cases it has taken the Physical Plant Department several hours to several days to address the problem. On the weekends the plant department’s staff is cut in more than half.

Mike King, director of the Physical Plant Department said there are two locksmiths, one driver, two electricians, two carpenters and one mechanic working on the weekends. However, all of these shifts end by 3 p.m. and then only the duty supervisors are left on call.

During the week the University has more than 80 workers on staff working around the clock.

“During the storm, however, we had triple the crew with close to 20 people here,” King said. “We wouldn’t leave the students here in the rain to fend for themselves.

However, this was how many students felt as some of their rooms and possessions were ruined by the leaks.

“The whole hallway was flooded,” Nick Schwiep, a senior audio/video/film major living on the 14th floor of Enterprise Hall, said.

His neighbors, however, had it worse. Water went under their doors and into their rooms. Maintenance came to Shop-Vac the floor, but it did not help because the water just came back, he said.

“There was a waterfall coming down the window,” Schwiep said and now one of his neighbors is moving to another dorm because “he can’t stand the smell.”

“Our whole lounge, the entire 13th floor, was under water,” Danielle Bartucca, sophomore elementary education major and resident in Estabrook Hall, said.

King said employees worked around the clock to respond to the reported leaks, but it became difficult when students called in three or four times for the same problem.

Currently, the department is recaulking roofs to prevent water penetration, which they had to wait to do until the rain passed.

“Some repairs can’t be effective in pouring rain,” King said.

In the event that a room becomes uninhabitable, there are emergency rooms on campus to accommodate the residents.

Residential Life has eight emergency male spaces and 12 emergency female spaces, Jean Smith, associate director of campus life events, said.

Both Smith and King admitted that even though leaks will be patched up, leaking could happen again if the area receives more rain and heavy winds.

In the event of another storm, students should try to have their possessions protected and insured.

The University is not responsible for damage done to personal property, Smith said, but they try to be fair.

If a student fills out in detail an incident report and brings receipts to Residential Life, they may be compensated for lost or damaged property.

“Without receipts, compensation is determined on a case-by-case basis,” Smith said.

She encouraged students to buy their own insurance policies if they are not covered by their parents’ homeowner’s insurance policy. There is information on property insurance from the National Students Services Inc., available at the Residential Life Office. However, the brochure does not mention property damage caused by leaks or flooding as being covered by their policy.

Traveling outside the dorms resulted in soggy socks and wet pant legs.

Last week’s rainfall totaled 12 and a half inches and the accumulation of water resulted in ankle-deep puddles in parking lots because storm drains could not collect the water as fast as it accumulated.

King said there are 760 dry wells on the 240-acre campus that span 20-feet deep and are 10-feet round.

“All of the dry wells were totally filled to the top,” he said.

The plant department had to pump the wells and high voltage electrical rooms that were also flooded. If these rooms flooded, the Univeristy would have lost power.

“The campus flooding kind of trapped me in my room,” Andrew Ferrell, sophomore film major, said. “The only places to go without being swept away were Hofstra USA and Dutch Treats. The lines were out the door all weekend.”

“I didn’t plan on living in a lake,” Christina Gallo, sophomore biology major, said. “I had to spend $30 on galoshes. Even with the galoshes my pants got wet.”

She decided to start driving to class once it became too much of a hassle for her to walk in the rain.

“I went through five pairs of socks in one day,” she said.

The amount of rain that poured from the sky last week was not something the University and the local residents are accustomed to.

“This rain storm was not ordinary circumstances,” Susie Trenkle, press secretary for the town of Hempstead, said. “Streets that usually don’t flood were flooding.”

The town of Hempstead clears storm drains of leaves and debris as they receive reports of flooded streets, Trenkle added.

Shuart Stadium soaks in a mini-lake, like many other locations around campus, when dry wells were filled to capacity. (Eric Blankenbaker/The Chronicle)