A water main break in a Mississippi State University residence hall on Friday temporarily moved 22 students to hotels in Starkville.
A pipe in Oak Hall broke around 8 p.m. Friday and forced the building to close overnight for repairs, MSU Chief Communications Officer Sid Salter said. Students were moved to the Hilton Garden Inn and LaQuinta Inn and Suites, both on Highway 12 north of campus. Repairing the pipes shut off the water for the entirety of Oak Hall, disabling the fire suppression system and requiring students to evacuate, Salter said.
Oak Hall reopened Saturday with the exceptions of 14 damaged rooms, and the 22 students in those rooms are still in the hotels, with no predicted return date as of Sunday, Salter said.
The dormitory has a capacity to hold 382 students, Salter said, but did not say exactly how many evacuated Friday night.
Several MSU students are already staying in one of two hotels the university rented for the fall semester, the Comfort Suites on Russell Street and the Hampton Inn on Blackjack Road to use as quarantine sites for positive COVID-19 coronavirus cases. Last week MSU reported 70 positive cases among students after one week of classes.
This is also not the first time the university has had to close residence halls in recent years due to water main damage. In January 2018, before students had returned to campus for the spring semester, the university temporarily closed two residence halls — Davenport and Dogwood halls — due to a water main break near the buildings.
Tess Vrbin was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 42 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.