A water main break in the Student Union forced the temporary closure of the building and relocation of Dining Services to Schaaf Lawn, in an email sent to students Tuesday morning.
According to Steve Kinsinger, Associate Director for Plant Operations, there was a rupture in the water line, which travels underneath Pleasant Ridge Avenue, causing water to begin bubbling up from the ground.
As a result, the Student Union had to be shut down while work began on repairs, leaving the building uninhabitable. This interrupted Dining Services as well as other occupants, including the SCE.
Because the Main Dining Room and One Main Cafe were unable to operate, Tuesday’s lunch and dinner was served on Schaaf Lawn.
Student reactions to the situation have been varied. Some didn’t seem terribly worried by the disruption of dining services.
“I honestly enjoyed eating outside,” said Sam Gulas, a sophomore music technology student. “I think it’s cool.”
“It’s a nice, not too hot, not too cold day,” said Isaac Lutz, a sophomore music technology student. “So actually, it’s pretty chill. I think it’s not, like, the end of the world.”
Other students expressed frustrations about the situation, feeling as though better care needs to be taken of campus facilities.
“This whole place needs to be in a major upgrade,” said Malechi Medley. “They need to do a lot of stuff that they probably haven’t been doing for five, 10 years. That’s my take on it.”
Outdoor dining also presented several problems, most notably swarms of bees and bugs infesting the trays of food.
“The bugs are kind of bothering me,” said Landon Johnson, an instrumental performance student. “I wanted to put cheese on my burger and I opened up the lid and four wasps flew out at me. So I had a burger with no cheese.”
Drinks were also in short supply. “They ran out of drinks really quickly,” said Bob Biehl, a music education student.
“If they could bring the big milk machine down, that would be nice,” Johnson said.
Aladdin staff also commented on the interruption to Dining Services.
“It’s just an interesting day […] it’s more work for us at Aladdin,” said Shelley Alsup, who was working on dinner Tuesday evening. “After work, we have to break all of this down and take it back upstairs. But I wish we could have had it upstairs instead of outside. That’s just my thoughts on that.”
Following the rupture, university facilities worked together to install a repair clamp, which sealed the water line. The city of Bexley inspected the repair and permitted water to be restored to the Student Union.
As of Wednesday morning, the Student Union has resumed normal operations.
