Accident in Cobb Hall causes flood, damages to residents' property

At about 10:30 p.m. on Oct. 8, four male residents on the sixth floor in Cobb Hall were playing with a basketball in the hallway. But when a bad bounce projected the ball into a sprinkler head, water started soaking and flooding the surrounding area.

Jonesville freshman Kayla Trachsel said her room experienced the worst of the damage.

"I wasn't in my room right when it happened, but my roommate called me after hearing about it, and I rushed back to my room to see what had happened," she said.

Trachsel said the carpet in her hallway from her room to about three rooms down was soaked with water from the sprinkler system. Unable to stop the broken sprinkler, water rushed into her room, and roughly half an inch of water covered her main room floor, she said.

"It smelled like rotten eggs," Trachsel said. "We had a bunch of rugs and carpet in our room, which were all soaking wet and were destroyed by the water."

As a result of the damages, the residents who were affected by the flooding were not allowed to stay in their rooms Monday night.

The next day, most of the flooding had been drained, and fans were placed in the halls and in Trachsel's room in an effort to eliminate the odor caused by the flood.

"When we came back the next morning, all of the water was pretty much drained, but all of our carpets and rugs were thrown out, because they were so destroyed," she said. "They placed a fan in our room to try and get rid of the smell, but it still smelled pretty bad."

Trachsel said Cobb Hall Residence Hall Director Jarrod Becht plans to meet with the students responsible for the accident in order to work out how the damages to her property would be resolved.

The four males involved in the incident will be required to pay for the labor required to fix the sprinkler, as well as the damages done to residents' property as a result of the flooding, Trachsel said Becht told the girls.

Becht was not available for comment as of Tuesday night.