Flooding in Jeter causes an estimated thousands of dollars of damage to students' personal items

Flooding from sprinklers in a Jeter Hall room caused thousands of dollars worth of damage to students' personal items late Monday night. 

“At the minimum probably $8,000,” sophomore Roland Williams said about the total cost of the damage to his and his roommate's items.

Williams entered his room after taking a shower, shut his door, heard a noise and felt water on his head, he said. He looked up and the sprinkler was going off. He looked down and a hanger, which was previously hanging on the sprinkler, was on the ground, he said.

“The hanger was what triggered the sprinklers,” Williams said. 

He never had anything hanging on the hanger, he said. 

Williams attempted to stop the water coming from the sprinkler by holding a bucket underneath, he said. On Tuesday, a video of Williams holding the bucket appeared on the Instagram account "5th Year." The video currently has over 670,000 views.  

One sprinkler went off and five rooms in Jeter were affected, said David Selander, a University of Richmond police patrol officer. 

Junior Dionte Austin, Williams’ roommate, was at an etiquette banquet for junior student-athletes when Austin got a call from Williams about the flooding, Austin said. 

“As you go more onto my side, it’s completely flooded,” Austin said. 

His Xbox and TV are ruined, Austin said. He was not sure whether his MacBook, which was in his flooded backpack, was also ruined, he said. 

Austin and Williams did not plan on leaving the scene until they were informed about whether the university would pay for the damages to their personal items, Austin said.

Workers from University Facilities were water vacuuming the inches of water that were on the ground in their room, Austin said. 

Austin said he had planned to sleep in his girlfriend’s room for the night, and Williams said he was unsure where he would be spending the night.

Contact news writer Victoria Davis at victoria.davis@richmond.edu.