By Greg Minor
Student Reporter
Buckets catching water from leaks in the ceiling and wet floor signs in the halls is all students and staff saw around campus on October 11.
Oklahoma counties were drenched in rainfall. Northwestern had seven inches of rain and damages to the buildings over a course of two days. Buildings such as Jesse Dunn, Fine Arts, Science, Education center and more. Offices had ceiling tiles fall throughout the day.
Dr. David Pecha, Vice President for Administration, said, “There was some isolated damage in offices as well as ceiling tiles and carpet in some buildings.”
“Over the years there have been leaks in various spots on roofs, but not to the extent as during this past wet cycle,” Pecha said.
“Some leaks occurred on building roofs where we have never had problems before.”
In Jesse Dunn, Dr. Kay Decker had damages in her office that forced her to change locations. She lost four days of work due to having to move into an alternate office.
Decker isn’t the only professor on campus who has damages. Dr. Bell is located on the second floor in the fine arts building, which is over a 100 years old. It the oldest academic building on campus, and with it being the oldest it’s easy for issues to occur.
Dr. James Bell started having issues with the left corner in his office. “This corner has always been a little prone to leaking, Bell said. “But part of what’s going on is that they are cleaning between the bricks because they are preparing to repair and replace those to prevent potential water to come in.”
The timing of this allowed more water than usual to come in because they were still in mid-process of fixing that corner. Bell had to make some adjustments to his office after the rain past. Moving plants from one side of the room to the other, in order to put a few fans on the floor to help dry the floor. Bell said “Really for as much trouble as it could’ve been it hasn’t been too bad.”
Pecha said, “With the recent heavy rains on campus, NWOSU did have several buildings with roof leaks. There were no leaks in Herod Hall that I am aware of at this time.”
Although Herod hall had no leaks maintenance has begun working on several other buildings on campus. “The first priority for physical plant and custodial services is to clean up any water that runs into the building,” Pecha said. “After the rain ends, crews evaluate the extent of the damages. An evaluation will be performed to see if the damage can be repaired by our employees or if the damage is too severe, other options will be reviewed.”
With the amount of damage caused by rain the cost for repairs is still being evaluated.