Water outage causes ‘panic’ amongst students

A water main break on Tuesday night caused stress and confusion for students living in the Litchfield Towers and Quad residence halls as they traveled to other on-campus buildings to find water. 

Pitt Police sent an ENS alert at 9:58 p.m. stating a “water main break affecting Central Oakland” impacted residents. The break cut water to all three Litchfield Towers and Amos Hall, which can collectively house around 3,060 students. Although water was intended to be restored at 11 p.m., according to the ENS update, water did not return to residence halls until 2 a.m. Wednesday.

Rebecca Zito, senior manager of public affairs at Pittsburgh Water, said the main break was caused by construction for the Recreational Center on O’Hara Street. 

“We are in the process of removing the old main, installing the new [main] and will connect all properties to the new main once it is fully installed,” Zito said.

Zito stated the construction will continue through at least the spring, and Pittsburgh Water will keep coordinating with the University during water service interruptions.

Lilly Grdovic, a first-year nursing major who lives in Towers, said the entire experience was “inconvenient.” She could not receive or make food as the Eatery was closed and Towers had no access to water. 

“We didn’t really know anything about it, and … we didn’t know what it was affecting either,” Grdovic said. “[Pitt was] just like, ‘All the pipes burst,’ and I was like, ‘Why do I care if a pipe burst?’ [Then], when we came up and we didn’t have any water and if I had known that, maybe I would have used the water refill stations somewhere else.”

Libby Perella-Carvalhaes, a first-year pre-pharmacy student living in Tower A, said she was about to get in the shower when she received the ENS message. She said she felt “scared” as she and her roommate did not know what was going on. 

“It felt like there was no communication with us students about what was really happening,” Perella-Carvalhaes said. “It was so late [and] it definitely was a disruption to my day.”

Some students, like Charlie Kurland, who lives in Tower B, said they collected water from the William Pitt Union and Hillman Library, which they rationed to brush their teeth, wash their face and complete other nightly routine tasks. Kurland likened the experience to a camping trip.

“It was like survival,” Kurland, a first-year political science major, said. “I had to brush my teeth with water and then I had to try and wash my face using my water bottle and it got kind of messy … it was just a mess.”

Other students said they walked to Hillman Library for water since it is open 24 hours during the week. Perella-Carvalhaes said she saw “so many” students walking over for water as well. Eliza Muchnok, a first-year environmental science major, said she went to Hillman at 2:30 a.m. to do her nightly routine.

“[It] was definitely an experience,” Muchnok said. “It was fun, but it [also] caused a lot of stress.”