Water was cut off to parts of Central Campus Wednesday after a water main was damaged during construction on Mill Village.
By 11 p.m. Wednesday, some Central residents reported that their water had started flowing again. It is unclear when the water was cut off.
Kelvin Clark, a graduate resident for Central, sent an e-mail to Central residents at 10:38 p.m. informing them of the problem, which affected many living between Alexander Avenue and Anderson Street. According to the e-mail, the damaged pipe will be repaired today.
Clark said he sent the e-mail after more than 30 students paged the Central Campus Community Assistant to report that their water was not working.
He said he first learned of the outage when he received an e-mail from Residence Life and Housing Services at about 4:30 p.m. Wednesday.
“We sincerely apologize for the late notice and any inconvenience this may cause you,” the e-mail reads.
Some students said they did not receive any official notice about the water being cut off.
“The water was off all evening and they didn’t even tell us,” junior Shama Milon said. “Central always has problems and they never tell us slash never take care of it.”
Junior Farah Dadabhoy said Duke should have informed students sooner about the outage so Central residents could plan around it.
“I didn’t even have any bottled water to drink,” she said. “I had to get water from West [Campus]... I think my roommate was going to go shower, she had to go somewhere else to shower.”
Clark said this is the first time water has been cut off during Mill Village construction. Electricity has occasionally been cut off to some residents for several hours at a time, but they were informed of those disruptions beforehand.
“I think the University is doing the best that they can,” he said. “Construction is construction, and you always plan for the mishaps, but you’re not able to cover everything.”
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