ARTS & LIVING Running water ran away from Piedmont Central for a day

Residents of Piedmont Central face the dilemma of no running water for a day.

AMIRA DANIEL Staff Columnist

What would you do if you lived in a multi-million-dollar building with no running water for one day?

Amid a stressful period of midterms, students at one of Georgia State’s on-campus residences, Piedmont Central, had one more stressor to add to their list. Mid-morning on October 23, 2022, around 1,140 residents in the six-year-old freshman housing facility were left without running water for nearly a full day.

“Water is so customary that you don’t think of it, but now you have to pee and walk to a whole other building… It’s ridiculous… It affected my day a great deal.” Said first-year GSU student Laura Vickers.

Vickers was one of many at the forefront of this inconvenience – of several students we contacted, she was willing to speak about her experience.

Vickers stated, “It was bad…I was going to take a shower then I couldn’t. We had to drive to my roommate’s brother’s house to shower. Even using the bathroom I had to go to the dining hall to pee, and had to go to my other friend’s room to brush my teeth… they live in Patton, so I had to walk there to brush my teeth… It was a lot.”

We attempted to reach out to a Piedmont Central Residential Advisor. We were informed that they are not permitted to speak to the media on the issue.

“Yeah, [the Residential Advisors] were [helpful] for the most part because if anything they live on the same floors as us so they’re helping us as much as they can and they couldn’t do anything as much as we asked, so they were just trying to be supportive throughout it — which I understand.”

Vickers believes the situation could have been handled better, however she is not upset with how it was handled.

Vickers states there may have been previous signs of something going on with the water, she mentioned that since moving on campus in mid-August, a very loud sound that resembled a car motor came from