Dozens of University freshmen sleeping inside Cougar Village 2 were abruptly woken up by fire alarms early Tuesday, alerting them to a flooding first floor lobby.
Students were woken up at about 4:40 a.m. to find that the first floor was flooded, according to several videos posted online. A large amount of water was streaming down from the ceiling into the lobby, computer engineering freshman Tony Alebsun said.
“I was pretty shocked, because it didn’t even seem real,” Alebsun said. “There was so much water coming at once.”
I’m just tryna go to sleep it’s 4:43am 🙃 pic.twitter.com/qrt4ROge5n
— Tony 🐯 (@tony_alebesun) September 10, 2019
Alebsun was walking back from Moody Towers Dining Hall when he saw people standing outside of CV2.
The flooding was caused by an HVAC system that malfunctioned at around 4:15 a.m., University spokesman Chris Stipes said.
“No student rooms were impacted (no residents live on the first floor),” Stipes said in an email. “A fire alarm prompted approximately 40 students to evacuate as a safety precaution, but they returned to their rooms within an hour.”
Stipes said maintenance crews were working throughout Tuesday to clean up the water, and the HVAC system had been repaired by 10 a.m. Two elevators were out of service, but two still remain operational, Stipes said.