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Volume 136, Issue 31
Monday, December 3, 2018
Inside: • Interim UT President Randy Boyd welcomed student and faculty questions in a series of open forums Thursday. Staff Writer Emily Lewellyn sat in on the student forum. Read more on page 2. • “In 2016, Americans were 3.6 times more likely to die from the flu than they were from being shot with a gun.” Columnist Austin Smith talks about the flu on on page 4.
Clement Hall is located off of Cumberland Avenue. Roddrick Tooles/The Daily Beacon
Clement Hall floods, residents forced to evacuate Kylie Hubbard
Editor-in-Chief
Cat Trieu
Campus News Editor
• Headed to the movies this week? Staff Writer Jake Yoder previews what’s new this week on page 6.
• Tennessee swim & dive swept the Tennessee Invitational Saturday. Copy Editor Caroline Jordan breaks down the meet on page 8.
An act of vandalism caused a pipe to flood a level of Clement Hall. Early Sunday morning, a pipe on the seventh floor of the hall burst due to suspected vandalism to the hallway ceiling. The water penetrated the floors below, including closets with electrical equipment, according to Coordinator for Student Communications & Social Media Team Member Katherine Saxon. “When I walked out of the room, it literally sounded like a waterfall,” Caroline McCarter, freshman in exploratory, said. “And, I looked
over and there was just water falling from the ceiling. It sounded like (and looked like) a waterfall.” The burst caused a power outage in the seventh floor and a significant amount of water penetrated the floor along with floors below. Power had yet to be restored as of Sunday afternoon. At 5:30 a.m., the fire alarm sounded, followed by students evacuating, according to McCarter. About four hours later, another announcement was made for everyone except the seventh floor residents to gather their items. Seventh floor residents did not gather their items until about two hours later. “The seventh floor was finally allowed to go in by groups and get their stuff and it was soaked,” McCarter said. According to Saxon, 90 evacuated residents were led to Strong
Hall after gathering essentials in groups led by Resident Assistants and the United Residence Hall council is providing food to evacuated students. Approximately 400 students live in Clement. “They’ve gotten everyone’s stuff out, made sure it was safe for all of us to reenter and then leave again,” McCarter said. As for administration, McCarter felt they haven’t been the most helpful. “I feel like they’re doing all that they can about the finding us a spot situation,” McCarter said. “I just feel like they just haven’t contacted us yet. We know all that they know, I feel like at this point, which isn’t a lot.” McCarter said she plans to stay with family but most of the other students are “bouncing from house to house.” “They said that we’ll either
be assigned a random residence hall tonight and if that fills up then we’ll be assigned a hotel,” McCarter said. As of Sunday afternoon, the placements had not been made. Saxon said UT Housing is looking to connect with academic affairs since the flooding happened less than a week before finals. “Housing is reaching out to academic affairs staff to make them aware of the situation as we know this incident will be disruptive to students as they prepare for finals,” Saxon said. McCarter said she planned to study day Sunday for a Chemistry final, but changed her plans after the flooding occurred. “I’m really nervous about that,” McCarter said. “That’s the thing that I’m most scared about.” Managing Editor Tyler Wombles contributed to this article.