At about 6:25 a.m. Sunday, a minor fire caught in the north kitchen of Cougar Village’s seventh floor. The sprinklers were activated, and the fire was extinguished immediately. | Justin Tijerina/The Daily Cougar
Sunday’s fire at Cougar Village left several students without a cozy place to eat their Easter candy.
At about 6:25 a.m., the seventh floor north side kitchen’s fire alarm sounded, and the sprinkler was
activated. Although the fire was extinguished immediately, residents of the north fifth, sixth and seventh floors were left without access to their rooms.
The cause of the fire is unknown.
South side seventh floor resident Breanna Cleveland said she was not affected by the sprinklers but feels bad for those who were.
“I have a friend that stays in the north side of the seventh floor, and she had to rent a room at the UH Hilton Hotel yesterday,” Cleveland said. “I also overheard a few students say in the elevator that they were renting a room and splitting the cost of the room.”
Front desk agent at the UH Hilton Hotel Dustin Lao said residents who decided to rent rooms were treated well and taken care of.
“Students who booked a room with us automatically received a 10 percent discount,” Lao said.
UH Director of Media Relations Shawn Lindsey assures Cougar Village residents the affected areas will not be left untreated.
“Houston Fire Department and UH Facilities staff were on site Sunday extracting water and are working to return the affected spaces back to their original condition,” Lindsey said in an email.
Does this not seem a little ridiculous that displaced residents were not taken care of by UH housing? Some students are displaced for at least a to a week, which would be a very expensive bill. I think this story deserves another, more extensive article. How many rooms were damaged? Who is handling repairs? How were displaced students provided for? Why did housing not have a plan for where to put them?
As a displaced resident myself, who had to actively seek out answers for almost 18 hours after discovering our room flooded by the sprinkler system, I do not think that we should have had to spend all day getting bad information (we were repeatedly told to just find a couch somewhere on campus… a lovely solution for a week). The dorm really had no plan for where we should go, and we could not talk to someone with any authority about the situation. Finally our wonderful RA found us empty beds in other places in CV, but I believe it is the dorm’s responsibility to look after the residents who were displaced and I am shocked that they did not have any plans, nor did they make any arrangements to provide alternative housing. A 10% discount at the Hilton seems like not nearly enough of a solution.