Coby Cub

LOOKING BACK ON A WET START

Colleen Mahoney & Maii Zikry
October 30, 2011
Filed under News

Uh-oh; it’s raining again. Surely some of the students and even faculty are shuddering. Within two weeks this campus saw more natural disasters than it has in my four years here. With Irene delaying the start of our fall 2011 academic semester, then with Lee hitting us even worse, we’ve already lost four-and-a -half days of classes.

Unfortunately for those students in cement city, the floods brought more than just a few days off. Sierra Rose, a freshman living on the first floor of Porter, suffered quite the loss during the flood. Sierra was living in a triple with two other residents and only had the use of half a desk, which she thought to be pretty useless. She found it easier to work on her bed, and then leave her books on the floor. Unfortunately, during the flooding Sierra’s things were still on the floor, resulting in the loss of her laptop, external hard drive, web camera, camera, and tablet for digital art class.

In the aftermath of the flood, Sierra has been struggling to get help from the college for her loss. The school told her that while they are not obliged to help students, they are trying to “do good” by the students. Sierra has recently heard from the college about her flood claim; she received a $1,000 check for her loss.

As Lee flooded our campus with rushing water, Residential Life had to quickly figure out what to do with those students who would be displaced by the disaster. As fate would have it, Parsons was supposed to be closed this year for renovations, so the removed students found a new home next to Davis.

In addition to physical damage, some students were hit with emotional damage they still haven’t overcome. Christina Hanson, a sophomore who was also a first floor resident of Porter, felt like she “lost her home” when the flood hit. Seeing the violent water running through her building instantly brought tears to Christina’s eyes as she struggled with questions such as “when will it stop?” and “where am I going to sleep?”.

As the reality of the flood becomes an all too recent memory for some people, students like Sierra and Christina are still recovering. And with both Porter and Fake/Ten Eyck still under construction students who were relocated are still waiting for someone, anyone, to tell them when they’ll be back into their original rooms and be able to stop living out of suitcases.