High Rise(ing) Water

Emily Ruderman
Alpha Phi

After you return from winter break, what do you expect from your room? Nothing. You’d really expect nothing to be different. Naturally, that’s what I thought when I was packing to come back to Penn. I planned on moving back in on Saturday, Jan. 7. I was very wrong. 

On Thursday, Jan. 5 I just so happened to be stalking my news feed on Facebook and came across a rather interesting set of posts: “5 of your friends have posted about Harrison College House.” Why are people talking about my dorm, I thought. As my curiosity got the better of me and I read the link that many people had posted, I was SHOCKED.

In an article in The Daily Pennsylvanian titled “Lobby, rooms flooded in Harrison College House,” the authors talk about how pipes on certain floors had broken on Wednesday and flooded the lobby and a select number of halls and rooms. Those floors specifically damaged were one through four and seven through 11. I live on the eighth floor. “Apparently the flooding was caused by heat fluctuation that started because windows were left open and heat was off, making the pipes burst,” recalls my roommate, sophomore Marisa Denker. 

When I read about this, on Facebook mind you, I immediately ran into my parents’ bedroom. They then called housing. Then they spoke to facilities. Soon all four of the girls in my apartment style dorm had their parents on the phone trying to figure out what was going on. How were we supposed to move back in 48 hours to our flooded rooms? Not okay.

It wasn’t until Friday afternoon that Harrison sent out an email about this crazy catastrophe. After many hours of talking to many people, my roommates and I were able to find out that we were actually lucky and the damage done in our room was very minimal compared to that of other apartments. 

When I returned to campus on Saturday, I was surprised as to how minimal it actually was. Nothing was ruined, except the rug underneath my bed was wet (but was fine after a cycle in the washer and dryer and a good dose of Febreze), and none of my clothing smelled. The apartment itself was a mess, though. Furniture was stacked on top of each other; drawers were thrown onto the beds. Since there was water damage along the walls and on the floor, especially in the common area and the single closest to the common area, the baseboards of the walls had to be removed, holes were made in the walls, dehumidifiers were placed throughout the space, and the heat was cranked up to as high as it could go. They were doing everything they could to get our room back in tip-top shape.

The only good thing to come out of this disaster was that the room was deemed unlivable. Why would that be good, you ask? Well, because my roommates and I, along with many other displaced Harrison residents, were put up in the Sheraton on 36th and Chestnut, for free. We were also given free meals at the dining halls (maybe not the best part of the deal) and reimbursed for meals eaten before the swipes were given. Housing really took care of us!

My only question is: why Harrison? The other high rises experienced the same temperature fluctuation and I’m sure some people accidentally left their windows open in Rodin or Harnwell, as well. The only answer: Harrison is cursed. Either that, or we just have some really bad pipes.

Emily is a sophomore studying communication. You may contact her at erude@sas.upenn.edu.