Rainwater leaked into some third floor rooms in several East Campus dormitories Sunday, affecting student rooms and a study room.
One student room in each of Brown, Pegram, Aycock and Gilbert-Addoms dormitories and a study room in Jarvis dorm suffered damage from leaks, said Jeanne Duncan, East Campus service manager.
None of the water damage was serious, she said. "There's nothing wrong with the integrity of the roof, [and] there's nothing wrong with the integrity of the [water gutters]."
Plaster roofing fell from the ceiling of a study room in Jarvis on Saturday. During Sunday's heavy rains, a significant amount of water began to enter the room.
"It wasn't dripping, but it wasn't a flood," said Trinity senior Clare Gentry, the Resident Advisor on the third floor of Jarvis.
Shortly after the rain started Sunday evening, water dripped steadily from the ceiling in Trinity senior Kristi Woods' room. Woods said the dripping in her Brown dorm room lasted for 20 minutes. Besides a wet carpet, Woods suffered no other damage.
The leaks probably occurred because the heavy rains on Sunday afternoon overwhelmed the downspouts which carry water away from the roofs of the dormitories, Duncan said.
Leaves, twigs and other debris may have gathered in the downspouts during the recent spell of dry weather. When the heavy rains hit Durham, the debris may have clogged up the downspouts and forced water back up onto the roof, she said.
Nature isn't the only one who clogs the drains, she said. "We find people's underwear, we find cups . . . quite an assortment of things that can not be attributed to nature."
The roofs then became overwhelmed with water, and some of it leaked through in areas where the roofs' water resistant coating had cracked, she said.
Workers from Facilities Planning and Management will ascend the roofs of the dormitories to check for damage, Duncan said.
The downspouts are cleared of debris in January and in late autumn each year by an outside contractor, Duncan said. They are examined periodically throughout the year.
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