A water pipe burst on the boys’ side of the ninth floor of Monroe Hall on Sunday night, resulting in mass flooding and causing students to evacuate and temporarily relocate for the night, according to an email from the Office of Emergency Preparedness and Response.

At around 11 p.m., students were evacuated as fire alarms sounded throughout the dorm. Several Tulane University Police Department officers and New Orleans Fire Department officers were assessing the situation while water leaked down outside the building from the top floors.

According to the Daily Activity Report sent to The Hullabaloo, NOFD “advised that since there would be no fire suppression system in place until the pipe could be fixed, the building would have to remain unoccupied.”

It is unclear how the pipe burst occurred and when Monroe will reopen. The extent of the damage is unknown.

Several students said Tulane University staff told them to find friends to stay with for the night and were not provided housing. According to students, there were no emails from the university regarding the situation until a campus-wide message was sent out at 11:25 a.m. on Monday. 

“My family’s luckily visiting for the first time this year, so I already had a place to stay,” freshman Xavier Hackett said. “I let my friends stay there because they had nowhere else to go. I had to help this kid who was just sitting in the business school and he had no place to sleep, and I had to tell the RA’s that he had no place to sleep.”

Freshman Pierce Edwards lives on the ninth floor where the pipe burst occurred, and said his roommate notified him that their ceiling had collapsed. He said students were advised to go to the Small Family Collaboration Hub during the evacuation.

“I got the videos, and then I ran here, basically as fast as I could with him,” Edwards said. “Then we got here, and they told us that everything was shut down. Then they told us to go to The Hub … I think a few people that couldn’t find friends or accommodations slept in the Hub.”

According to the DAR, members of Student Affairs and Housing “were on hand to assist the displaced students with finding temporary housing.”

Students were allowed inside the building Monday morning and were instructed by housing staff to grab necessities for the next day or two. At the same time, dozens of maintenance workers loaded equipment to repair the floors and ceilings into the building.

“I think they’re underestimating [it],” freshman Matt Silverman said, referring to how many days he was instructed to pack for. 

The 12-story building was constructed in 1963 and is Tulane’s largest first-year residence hall, housing around 500 students. 

“It’s pretty obvious that this dorm, in particular, is very outdated; for instance, our shower drain just stops working once a week,” Edwards said. “I feel like the university, especially considering all the money it’s getting from us, has turned a blind eye to it. This is just the perfect storm of that negligence.”

Monroe will remain on lockdown until the fire marshal declares it safe for occupancy. People can only enter if necessary and are accompanied by Housing and Residence Life staff.

“In the interim, we are identifying alternative housing accommodations for impacted residents,” the statement from the OEPR said. “The safety of our community is our number one priority. We are working with emergency officials on a timeline for the building opening and will communicate that information once we have it.”