University of Maryland students left without water after water main break on campus

COLLEGE PARK, Md. (DC News Now) — A water main break across University of Maryland’s (UMD) campus has been repaired. This comes after students were without water for several hours.

UMD said the issue was widespread and was affecting many buildings on campus. Because of that, a number of academic and administrative buildings were closed for the day. Just before 8:30 p.m. on Monday, UMD announced the issue was fixed and the university will return to normal operation.

Many students say they were surprised when they woke up in the morning to no running water in their dorms.

“I woke up [and] my roommate told me there’s no water. So I kind of had to use the restroom in the computer science building,” said Chibundu Onwuegbule, a sophomore at the school.

Nina Belliveau, a junior at the university, said she found out the hard way when she walked into her dorm’s bathroom as she was preparing for class.

“It’s been bad, I haven’t been able to shower. In the other bathrooms there’s an issue with flushing the toilet but people still have to use the restroom. It’s smelling pretty bad on my floor,” she said.

Part of Preinkert Drive remained closed off as workers spent hours trying to fix the issue.

Students told DC News Now that the university was encouraging students to use the showers in the gym on campus.

“It’s a big inconvenience. It’s midterms right now, so you know we’re just trying to hold ourselves together so not having water, sort of that’s the bare minimum and we want it,” Belliveau said.

UMD advised that students who had classes in affected buildings would receive updates from faculty members and that anyone who works in the buildings should work from home.

The school included the following guidance:

Faculty: If you have classes in the affected buildings, please use your discretion to transition to online classes. Please communicate directly with your students with alternative arrangements for your classes.
McKeldin, Art and Architecture libraries are closed.
The University Health Center is closed; appointments are moving to telemedicine.
The Counseling Center will operate on a limited basis with walk-ins and telehealth appointments.
Accessibility and Disability Service will move to remote appointments but the Testing Office will remain open.
Residents of affected halls are receiving updates directly from Residential Facilities.
South Campus Dining Hall remains open, but will provide further updates if service is interrupted.

UMD said the buildings listed below may have little water pressure to no water:

Academic and Administrative Buildings
Knight Hall
Benjamin Building
Tawes Hall
P. Mitchell Art-Sociology Building
Architecture Building
Van Munching Hall
Mowatt Lane Garage
Susquehanna Hall
McKeldin Library
University Health Center
Jimenez Hall
Chincoteague Hall
Preinkert Hall
LeFrak Hall
Tydings Hall
Taliaferro Hall
Morrill Hall
Shoemaker Building
Woods Hall
Skinner Building
Turner Hall

It noted that if a building is not on this list, it remained unaffected by the water outage and that normal operations continued, including in-person classes.

UMD said in addition to the academic and administrative buildings, the following residence halls were affected: