On Saturday, August 13, heavy hail and flash flooding damaged over 20 buildings across campus.
“At the peak and before being absorbed, some areas of the Union had 2-4 inches of standing water,” Erik Kahl, Director of the Wyoming Union, said. “Areas impacted most by flooding in the lower level were areas around Student Media, Fireplace lounge and women’s restroom, University Store, and Pokes Pub and Game Room.”
“On Saturday, the thought was not about assessing the damage, it was about preserving as much property as we could, whether that be the building or the stuff inside the building,” Michael Zeeman, an Engineer for UW Operations, said. “We’re certainly trying to hedge our bets against that as much as possible and do everything we can to keep the building safe.”
Other buildings that suffered major damage include the Coe Library, UniWyo Sports Center, and the Washakie Dining Center.
“By the time I arrived, around 8:30, we found a lot of standing water on the first floor,” Paula Martin, Associate Dean of Coe Library, said. “So the first thing that we did was say, ‘okay, we need to do an assessment of where this water actually is and how it’s getting in.’”
The 2009 addition to the building is actually lower than its historical counterparts, as a result, the STEP Tutor Center, the Learning Resource Network (LeaRN), and the Writing Center were left in standing water.
One of Brenna Philbrick’s, an Administrative Associate of UW Libraries, main concerns was accessibility repairs for students.
“We have a freshwater creek that runs underneath the library, so when we have a lot of rain, our elevators have some pumps but they get overwhelmed,” Philbrick said. “That elevator is down so parts of the building just aren’t accessible if you need to use an elevator.”
Other weather impacts included the formation of two ponds on the East side of Old Main.
“We figured there might have been roughly a million gallons of water, maybe a little less, in the larger one and maybe 900,000 gallons of water in the pond on the west side of the double sidewalks,” Kevan Thompson, Assistant Landscaping Manager, said.
The landscape team used commercial pumps to remove the water, and their efforts will continue to take several days as residual water still needs to soak in and debris needs to be removed from those areas, as well as flower beds and sidewalks around campus.
