Students were evacuated from Library North at 11 a.m. when a sprinkler head in the parking lot below was broken.
“When [the alarm] first went off it was kind of surprising, because I’ve never been in an emergency,” said Kevin Ding, a sophomore computer science major.
Students were held outside the library complex for nearly twenty minutes, being directed back and away from the doors by campus faculty.
“It seemed like a drill. Everyone was really slow to get out, and it disrupted everyone,” said Elizabeth Teasley, a senior journalism major.
Students were allowed back in relatively soon following the incident, only for the alarms to sound a second time.
According to Tom Concannon, Zone 4 Mechanical Equipment Inspector, a truck was changing elevations in the lot when it struck the sprinkler head, destroying it.
“As I was coming out it barely cleared these two [sprinklers], but when it had a change of elevation it busted that one.”
Concannon said that the truck’s height was increased by large white barrels and hand trucks, making the vehicle too tall to pass through the garage.
“He stopped and then he continued on to where he normally back into… [and] took something off the back of the truck.”
