PALANA Flood Dampens Halloween Spirits

Author: Megan O'Keefe

Halloween was set to be the public debut of the Pan-African Latino Native American (PALANA) Center's new home in Carr Hall. But the inaugural celebration - which included a haunted house for local children and an open, registered party both sponsored by Distinguished Men of Color (DMC) - was almost cancelled when heavy rainfall flooded the basement of Carr Hall on Oct. 27 and 29.

On Friday afternoon, PALANA residents, members of DMC and commons residential staff helped in a hurried effort to decorate a room on the first floor of PALANA in anticipation of the children's party hours later, while giant air blowers dried still-damp wall-to-wall carpeting in the building's basement. Haunted house decorations set up in the spacious, recently revamped basement lounge during an open house the week before were washed away in a flood that left the facility soaked and foul-smelling.

In addition to temporarily closing the PALANA Center's primary social space, the flood threatened a major portion of the College's telephone system. Hundreds of electrical and telephone cords running on and near the floor of the technical rooms were soaked with water from the flood.

Rainwater entered the building through cracks in the foundation and the floor of two telephone and network equipment rooms located in the basement, pouring out of the rooms and into the PALANA social space.

Describing the condition of the basement after the flood, Residential Advisor of PALANA Athenia Fischer '04 said, "It looks horrible and it smells." While the children's haunted house was accommodated elsewhere in the residence hall, plans for the open party on Friday night remained uncertain throughout the week. Flyers posted on bulletin boards across campus announced that the DMC Halloween party would take place in Forest basement, but at 6 p.m. on Friday night event organizers decided that improved conditions in the basement of Carr Hall would permit them to move the party back to its original location. DMC vice president Edwin Semidey '06 noted that the party was well attended despite confusion about the location.

While the flood did not damage any technical equipment, Director of Telephone Services Peggy Fischel said that a vital section of the College's telephone and computer network system are continuously at risk due to the current facilities conditions in Carr Hall. "Though we have a distributed telephone system with 11 locations around our campus, downtown Middlebury and Bread Loaf, Carr Hall houses the brain of the system and damage to that piece of equipment would cause a system outage," said Fischel.

Water sensors currently located on the floor of the technical rooms in Carr Hall notify designated individuals in the department of Information and Technology Services (ITS) in the event of a water intrusion, but no drainage system is currently in place. Fischel said that Facilities Management is currently considering how to address the poor drainage problems that caused the flood.

Fischer expressed frustration that the basement space - which was just made available to PALANA residents in mid-October - is plagued with severe facilities problems with no imminent solution. "When I asked what's going to happen," said Fischer, "they said they will continue to monitor it."