Med center construction left Central waterless

The water outage on Central Campus Wednesday evening was a result of construction taking place in the Medical Center.

A Durham city line was cut during the construction, which caused low water pressure and outages in the area, Terry Lynch, Residence Life and Housing Services assistant dean of staff development and Central Campus, wrote in an e-mail to Central residents Thursday morning. 

“It was kind of unclear on whether or not it was just a specific section of Central where the water was cut off or if it was throughout,” Lynch said. “At the time they thought it would only take 20-25 minutes to correct, but the individuals who were looking to correct the water couldn’t find the valve.”

The original information available to students and The Chronicle by Kelvin Clark, a graduate resident for Central, incorrectly stated that the water outage was caused by the construction on the Mill Village project. Despite Clark’s alert and inaccurate information, RLHS did not send an explanatory e-mail until the following afternoon. 

“One of our graduate residents for Central Campus attempted to send out an e-mail to all of Central Campus [Wednesday] night about the water outage,” Lynch wrote in the Thursday e-mail. “In review, [Clark’s] e-mail only went out to about 50 percent of Central Campus. His e-mail also indicated that the outage was related to construction on Central Campus which was incorrect.”

Junior Joe Ahdoot, a Central Campus resident, said people who were affected by the outage were upset by the inconvenience. 

“I was walking out the door when it started, but people sounded pretty upset that they couldn’t take showers,” he said. “If I had wanted to take a shower at that time, I would have been pissed.”

Numerous apartment buildings on Central will also be experiencing a power outage on Monday between 10 a.m. and noon as a result of Mill Village construction, according to a separate e-mail alert from Lynch.