“An Act of God”: Post-Spring Break Flooding in Dorms

The Tuesday after break I woke up at 6 AM to the rhythmic patter of water splashing into puddles on the floor of my dorm room. I’ve known that Branford is not the most architecturally sound building in the world, but I was surprised that the frame of my window wasn’t holding anything back. I groggily threw some towels down and went back to bed.

I was conscious again around 10:25 AM, at which point real mayhem was breaking out in the basement. I trudged downstairs upon receiving an email from the Office of Residential Life warning all Housefellows that their basements might be flooding. I caught one resident, Stephen Eicher ‘13, heading out to class.

“I woke up and looked over the side of my bed and saw one of my socks floating by,” he said. “We got a lot of water in there.”

I ran up to my room to put boots on and made my way back to the basement. There were a couple of inches of standing water, worse in some places, being furiously swept around by six Physical Plant employees. They were equipped with a water pump and were able to dry out the basement by the mid-afternoon. While this is a long time to have water around, the school’s equipment and staff were thinly spread throughout the flooded dorms, making the process especially slow and grueling for the custodians.

Confused residents of the Branford basement tried in vain to sop up the water using towels or simply sacrificing their carpets to keep it from spreading further. Everyone seemed grumpy but generally satisfied with the school’s response, especially the hard work of the Physical Plant employees who kept them all from drowning in their sleep.

“We were told and handed forms about how the school would compensate overnight water damage. Several things were damaged, such as a Playstation and a computer,” said Nick Tolman, a freshman who resides in a basement quad in Branford.

However, due to nuances in our college’s insurance policies, the school reversed its decision shortly thereafter.
“A day later we were sent a letter from the Director of Res. Life saying that the college couldn’t cover our damages,” said Tolman.

As an employee of Residential Life, I know that events like this often paint a bad picture of the wrong people. Director Amy Gauthier had to play the villain in this case, sending out the email telling students that they were not going to be covered.

“If any of your items were damaged, you will need to either consult your renter’s insurance or your parent’s homeowners insurance policy,” Gauthier wrote in her email to students. “When we experience severe weather, much like we did on Tuesday, it is considered an ‘act of God’ and is not covered by the college’s insurance.”
Just so we’re all on the same Wikipedia page, an act of God is “a legal term for events outside of human control for which no once can be held responsible.”

Students were understandably disturbed by this response.

“It sounded like the school was implying that God intentionally screwed us over and they could do nothing to help us,” said Tolman.

“If floods happen every year, fix it,” said Edward McClean, a freshman in Branford. “That they have only a handful of vacuums to handle a flooding situation is absurd.”

Colleen Haggarty, Area Coordinator of central campus, described the way our insurance works in general terms. If a flaw in the building directly causes a problem, such as a pipe bursting, the school can cover it. The school cannot cover the actions of God. Apparently this was some biblical stuff, one step down from Noah’s Arc Part II, because the school’s hands were tied and they could not cover the damages.

Here’s where things get sour: the flooding was clearly due to a structural flaw in the building, not just the magnitude of this Godstorm. In fact, Branford is one of the dorms at the top of the Connecticut College hill; we sit pretty close to the stairs of Blaustein where tours are told they are at the highest point in New London. You will notice that you have to go downhill to get to the Plex. If this was truly an act of God, it seems odd that the buildings that are, geographically speaking, the least susceptible to flooding would be targeted.

The truth is that the flooding in Branford happened because the dorm is old. Everyone knows it is not waterproof in any sense. Claiming that this was an act of God is based on the premise that no one saw the event coming, that nobody could have prevented it. Flooding, to some degree, happens every year in these central dorms, Plant, Blackstone, and Branford especially.

We go to a liberal arts college. We are taught everyday in class to question that which is overly dogmatic, to not be someone who accepts institutionalized standards just because they exist. The school should just admit that they don’t have the money to cover the damages and fix the dorms, not try to pull the wool over our eyes with the oldest excuse in the Book.