Infrastructural Woes Continue: Lane Floods, Pool Shuts Down for a Week

Students utilizing the Lane Center Monday evening were told to evacuate by university officials due to a pipe burst, which flooded the first-floor atrium near the entrance to the bookstore. This is the second building on the Frostburg campus to be shut down for water-related issues in the last month, the former being the catastrophic flooding at Brownsville Hall on February 10th.

According to various anonymous students present at the Lane Center, at approximately 7:00 pm, a group of individuals using the ping pong table in the game room on the first floor lost track of the ball in the middle of a game—it had rolled its way underneath the first-floor staircase. One student promptly retrieved the ball, but in doing so, had inadvertently struck an exposed pipe, causing it to gush out gallons of water onto a highly trafficked area of the building.

The student claims that the pipe was unprotected from potential disturbances, stating that they “just knocked it” and that the spraying was easily initiated. The building was promptly evacuated and closed for the night, and the disdain of the students witnessing the flooding floor can be heard from a video taken on the scene. For a building that was completely renovated back in 2009 for a period of nearly two years, a bare, fragile pipe seems like something that may have been overlooked.

Especially considering the displacement of nearly 450 students due to severe flooding just under a month ago at Brownsville Hall, the university’s infrastructure is beginning to show a pattern. More often than not, it seems that these “state-of-the-art” areas on campus have been overlooked which compromised elements that break down easily.

Like those present at the Lane Center Monday evening, many students are beginning to take notice of this pattern. This is particularly evident in those that were directly affected by the Brownsville floods back in February. One student who was impacted by the event, sophomore Sydney Mills, said that the flooding was not the only strange occurrence in the dormitory. “The other week [the one adjacent to February 11^th], while we were out, the laundry room caught on fire,” she said.

According to Sydney, many students’ belongings were relatively close to the laundry room, risking potential destruction. This is the exact same situation that occurred in the flooding, where students’ property was damaged by the infrastructural failures of Frostburg buildings.

The Lane Center isn’t the only area on campus that was shut down in a short period of time—last week, the swimming pool in the Cordts P.E. Center was closed indefinitely due to a water leak that breached the electric light system. This was within the depths of the water, causing the pool to be drained for repairs, resulting in a week-long closure. According to swim coach Matt Brinton, the last time the pool had been drained for maintenance was all the way back in 2006.

As with many of the older buildings on campus, the Cordts Center certainly shows its age. If the newer, renovated buildings on campus are continuing to show infrastructural flaws, it only seems logical to assume that these aging buildings may have their fair share of problems in the future.

Does this pose a fresh set of concerns for students and future Bobcats at the University—should current and future renovations be trusted, and are they beneficial for the future of the college? In light of the lethargic construction of the new Education & Health Sciences building, this is a valid question. As one student posted on an anonymous online message forum, “Here’s to hoping the new building wasn’t built as cheaply as the rest of these crusty dumps.”