Students on the ground floor of Kirkley Hall on Tuesday woke up to a sight of flooded rooms. One of the students affected by the flooding is freshman Dana Grenman. Her roommate awoke on Tuesday morning at 6:45 and stepped right into the flood.The lack of immediate response, according to Grenman, by the Kirkley Hall staff was not pleasing to Grenman or her roommate.”It took us forever to find someone”, said Grenman. “We called, we banged on doors, we paged.” Grenman’s roommate finally found a Resident Assistant while Grenman was in class, and maintenance staff members were called in. Neither Grenman nor her roommate was impressed with the job that the maintenance staff did. Grenman was even less impressed with the response from the Kirkley Resident Manager. “Later in the day, when I talked to the RM, he didn’t seem very sympathetic. He looked at us like we were retarded when we asked to be relocated. When we went to check out, the guy on duty said ‘sorry about that y’all’ like it was a messed up order at Burger King–that really p—d us off,” said GrenmanBy the end of the day Grenman and her roommate were relocated to temporary housing at the Gintz Family Apartments across campus.As for the damage to the room and the loss of personal property, Grenman said that power strips and AC adapters were lost along with her roommate’s printer, and her textbooks were damaged by the water. Two rugs were also ruined in the flooding.Grenman said that she and her roommate have received a reimbursement form from Residence Life but have not turned it in yet, fearing they may find more damage after submitting the form. Grenman does not want to waive her and her roommate’s right to sue Residence Life or the University. “Our parents don’t want us to get into a contract,” said Grenman. Grenman is extremely disappointed with Residence Life’s response to the situation, not even promising them a permanent dorm room assignment. “They said they can’t guarantee that we’ll get a dorm room, but if we do it would be after Rush week,” said Grenman.Grenman said friends have helped her move and junior Jason Plotkin has been helping her get the word out about what happened, even mentioning it at last Tuesday night’s meeting of the SHSU Student Government Association. Plotkin expressed the feelings he’s received from numerous students across campus.”There are obviously a great deal of concerns associated with living on campus. Students are frustrated with the recent events they’ve heard about and the answers seem to be in hard to find places,” said Plotkin.Staff members from the Department of Residence Life were not available for comment at press time.
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