Residents of North Hall, Gannon University’s year-old residence hall, were forced to leave the building for nearly an hour Thursday after the fire alarm sounded at 6:30 a.m.
“I was still sleeping when the alarm went off,” Merranda Miller, a sophomore nursing major, said. “It definitely freaked me out.”
The building’s residents took shelter in the Carneval Athletic Pavilion and Finegan Hall to escape the morning chill.
Elizabeth Manning, resident director of North Hall and assistant director of Student Living, said the alarm sounded after the sprinkler above the main entrance froze and broke.
“Apparently, due to lack of insulation in the the ceiling in our main entrance is what caused the sprinkler to freeze and break,” Manning said.
Coryn Reiser, a sophomore history major, said she first thought the alarm sounding was only an ill-timed drill, but she knew something was up when she saw water pouring from the busted sprinkler onto the lobby floor.
“It looked like the Titanic flooding,” Reiser said.
Manning said the building received minimal damage from the incident and the mess was cleaned up in a timely manner, thanks to Gannon’s maintenance staff.
While North Hall didn’t suffer much damage and no residents were injured, Miller said the incident was still a nuisance to her morning routine.
“It was inconvenient because all the time we were sitting in the rec, I could have been getting ready for my morning classes,” she said.
Assistant Features Editor April Shernisky contributed to this report.
