This post was updated Nov. 11 at 11:37 p.m.
Thirty-two students were displaced from Hedrick Hall on Thursday morning because of flooding.
A sprinkler in a Hedrick Hall stairwell was activated around 12 a.m., causing flooding that affected 11 rooms, UCLA Housing said in an emailed statement. All impacted residents have been relocated to “emergency housing,” it added in the statement.
Maintenance crews finished water extraction work at about 3:30 a.m., UCLA Housing said in the statement, adding that structural restoration efforts are ongoing.
Yee Vang, the assistant director of Hedrick/OC Court, said in an email to residents that a whiteboard was taken from the building’s seventh floor lounge and thrown down the Hedrick South stairs, which damaged a fire suppression pipe and caused “significant flooding” and damage to personal property.
Jaydinn Martin, a first-year political science student and Hedrick Hall resident, said she was sleeping when she was woken up by a fire alarm. She added that she only had time to grab her BruinCard before leaving the building.
Martin left her room without her phone, roommates or any way to contact anyone, she said. She was still dressed in her pajamas when she left the building, she added.
“I felt actually horrible,” Martin said. “I was really frustrated and I think overwhelmed.”
Martin said she was not relocated and did not experience any water damage, but did miss her first class Thursday morning because she was tired.
Fans and dehumidifiers were placed on the second, third and fourth floors of Hedrick Hall. Rubber trim was peeled back along the base of the walls.
Brown water stains, a shattered fire sprinkler valve box and chips in the wall were visible in the Hedrick South stairwell near the fourth floor as of 8 p.m. Thursday. Empty pipe hangers – which previously held sprinklers – were on the fourth floor.
Signs requesting information about the incident were put in the whiteboard’s former location.
“This incident is under active investigation,” Vang said in the email. “This behavior poses a serious safety risk to our community, and we are taking it very seriously.”
