Students Displaced From Classrooms and Dorms Following Flooding

Part of the first floor of the Institute of Environmental Sustainability and the second and third floors of San Francisco Hall flooded Jan. 15, causing classes and students to be displaced and Engrained Cafe to close until damages could be repaired.

The flooding in the IES and San Francisco Hall was caused by a frozen sprinkler line that burst in the building, according to Kana Henning, Loyola’s director of facilities. All repairs were completed as of Feb. 12. 

Among the impacted classrooms in IES were room 122, 123 and 124, according to Henning. 

A storefront in the Granada Center was also impacted by flooding from a frozen sprinkler line and the fourth floor of Mertz experienced flooding from a window that was left open, causing a heating unit in the building to freeze. 

Tyler Chapman, a second-year conservation and restoration ecology major, said he has two classes in IES, one of which is now being held on Zoom. He said the class that wasn’t displaced is in a room that is under construction. 

“It’s in the same room but there’s plastic everywhere and the seats are very close together,” Chapman said. “You can hear the other classes going on in the background, so sometimes it’s quite strange.”

Chapman said this learning environment has impacted his ability to keep up with the class material. 

“One of my classes is environmental statistics, and that was on Zoom for the first three weeks and I didn’t catch a lot,” Chapman said. “I don’t work on Zoom very well, so I am quite lost now.”

He said class is back in person now which is helping, but he is still struggling to get caught up on everything he missed while the class was held virtually.

Students were notified by their professors if their class was going to be relocated or held online while the IES was under construction, according to Chapman, who said he wished the university did a better job of communicating with impacted students directly rather than relying on the professors to share the information.

Loyola spokesperson Matt McDermott didn’t respond to The Phoenix’s requests for comment on the communication protocol between the university and students.

Some students in San Francisco Hall were displaced from their rooms and are being housed in other dorms on campus, according to Patrick Lyons, a first-year student who was relocated to Regis Hall while his room underwent repairs from flooding. 

Des’Mon Taylor, director of residence life at Loyola, said in an email to The Phoenix that a total of 62 residents were impacted from the flooding at LSC, and the university was able to temporarily relocate all students in a “number of spaces.”

Lyons said he and his roommate had just returned from winter break and were in their room when they noticed water rushing over the outside of their windowpane. He said at first they thought somebody was power washing the outside of the building, but then water began to seep into the room where the walls meet the floor. 

During the flooding, there was about half an inch of water on the floor of his room, according to Lyons. Neither he nor his roommate lost any of their personal belongings to the flooding. 

“We moved all of our stuff up to our beds just to make sure that we weren’t gonna get anything with water damage on it,” Lyons said. “And then we got a bunch of towels and tried to block all of it up as well, but that just didn’t work.”

Following the flooding, Lyons said impacted students were taken to Engrained Cafe where they were told their temporary room assignments while the damages were being repaired. He said was placed in a room with the same roommate he had in San Francisco Hall.

Lyons said they received weekly updates from the university on the status of the repairs to their room, but they weren’t given a timeline for when they could move back in until Feb. 12 when they were told they would be able to move back in starting Feb. 14. 

“It was very frustrating at first, just because we had just moved back and gotten settled,” Lyons said. “School’s about to start and then as soon as we’re adjusting to our new classes, this happens so it’s just a little frustrating, but looking back at it in real time it hasn’t been too big of a deal.”

Isabel Eckenrode, a first-year nursing student, said she has one class in the IES which was displaced from the flooding. She said the class started on Zoom and then was moved to a new room in Cuneo Hall before moving back into the room the class was scheduled for in the IES about three weeks into the semester.  

Eckenrode said she thinks the university does as much as they can to handle flooding, but she still wishes there weren’t so many issues around campus. The university has experienced flooding issues in the past, as floors two through 11 of Mertz Hall flooded in December 2022, The Phoenix previously reported.

In September 2022, 34 university buildings also flooded following heavy rainfall, The Phoenix previously reported.

Henning said with the rise of climate change, there is expected to be an increase in severe weather events, so the university is planning to work on improving the infrastructure of campus buildings to account for these.

“Rain events and storms will become more severe,” Henning said. “Extreme deep freezes will become normal alongside mild winters.  We have made significant improvements to our campus to mitigate against stormwater flooding, and we will continue to work to protect our buildings against extreme freeze thaw cycles that threaten our facilities.”

Gabi Sanchez, a second-year psychology major, said she also had one class originally in IES that was displaced and instead held on Zoom and then in Cuneo Hall for the first three weeks of the semester. 

She said the inconsistencies in the learning environment made it hard for her to pay attention to the material in the class. 

“Having to switch from being on Zoom to being in-person and to a different building has just been kind of irritating,” Sanchez said. 

Featured image by Leslie Moraz / The Phoenix