Boston University students across campus struggled with housing problems this past weekend after record-low temperatures caused heating issues and pipes to leak in George Sherman Union, the Student Village and Danielsen Hall, among other buildings.
Residents in brownstones on Bay State Road also had issues with inadequate heating.
Boston Mayor Michele Wu declared a cold emergency on Thursday, Feb. 3, due to the cold weather and urged all Boston residents to, “take precautions, stay warm and safe, and check on your neighbors during this cold emergency,” according to a city of Boston press release.
The weekend of Feb. 5, Boston saw extreme cold weather, with wind chills below zero. The lowest temperature on Saturday was -10 degrees with a -36 degree wind chill — the coldest day in Boston since Jan. 15, 1957, according to NESN.
BU Spokesperson Colin Riley wrote in an email that fire alarms were triggered by leaking and burst pipes.
“The deep freeze on Friday night and thawing temperatures on Sunday led to fire alarm activations caused by leaking or burst pipes and flooding in numerous locations on campus,” Riley wrote.
“BU Facilities Management crews, Environmental Health and Safety teams and outside companies responded immediately to shut off the water and have worked non-stop throughout the weekend to clean up and repair the damage.”
Sage Winkler, a junior in the Questrom School of Business who lives in one of the Bay State brownstones, said she did not feel any heat coming from the heater in her dorm room this past weekend.
“Everybody [seemed] to be still very cold even if their heat was on,” Winkler said. “We were all very bundled up just to make sure that we could actually stay warm.”
Winkler said she first noticed heating problems in her dorm room last semester and called BU facilities to fix the heater. She said her room got “minimal” heat after facilities came.
“We knew that there wasn’t much we could really do [this weekend], especially because there were so many other people in our building too that were just not getting enough heat,” she said.
Winkler said she thinks BU was “somewhat responsive” to the heating problems on Bay State Road but thinks there will still be an “ongoing issue.”
“With the buildings being so old, I feel like there is a very limited [chance] to change anything or really fix the issue,” she said. “I think taking time [to address heating issues] when students aren’t there, like over the summer, would be beneficial.”
Helen Monroe, a sophomore who lives in StuVi II, said she noticed something was wrong with the pipes Sunday afternoon when she was doing her laundry and the washing machines did not work.
“I was pretty upset because I put my laundry in like two different washers before I figured out what was happening,” Monroe said. “I couldn’t use my comforter for two days because it kind of got gross in the washer before I took it out.”
Monroe said she felt like it took facilities “a while to fix” the problem.
“I think I went down [to the laundry room] three or four times throughout two days to figure it out,” she said. “I think they could have gone on it faster probably.”
Boston University is still repairing damages and cleaning up from this weekend, Riley wrote.
