I got a call at 6:00 am this morning from the custodian of our lab building, saying there'd been "major damage" to the lab from the rains last night. Fortunately, I don't keep a phone in my room, so was blissfully unaware of the situation until I got up for class at 8:30. Since she has a tendency to "expand" on things, I decided - after a moment of panic, admittedly - to get ready for class and swing by the lab on my way to teach.Sure enough, the front table had a line of trashcans catching water, and the teaching stations sitting out for Osteology class were full of water. The bones are quite waterlogged....but since most of them were in the ground for a long time, I'm assuming they'll dry out fine. My real concern was for the two big research collections.
Fortunately, they seem to be unscathed. My office however, is a different story. Drenched. On the up side...this is the excuse I needed to clean it I guess.
They've been "fixing" the roof for the past two weeks, and apparently the storms last night were strong enough to blow away the temporary coverings and allow the big leaks. A few days ago I finished cleaning out the Trace Element lab (we're turning it into a DNA lab) so it was empty. And Mark's lab just had a few puddles.
Could've been bad. In the end, just a bit of a pain. Got lucky!
6 comments:
Oh man! That's insane. I guess it was coming sooner or later. That's exactly what M & I said happened at their house before this summer -- people were repairing it, and the tarps didn't hold when there was rain (in their case snow).
Hmmm....rain and snow in South Bend? I can see why these people keep getting caught unawares. Who would think it would rain or snow there?
Sorry you're cleaning - I hope everything is okay. It sounds like most of the bones are okay. Hopefully with fans going, it will dry out soon enough.
Yep. When I heard the call, all I could think of was your dream a last year about the sprinklers coming on and destroying the collection.
While I realize that was just dissertation-related stress, I was still a bit in awe for a moment ;-)
Oh man - I forgot about that dream.
What a mess though! I hope the equipment in your office is okay, too. I just thought of that - if it was worse, there was some important stuff in there too.
Of course, it's all replaceable....
That's crazy! I guess I picked a good time to leave ;) I hope the clean-up goes well, and that there is no permanent damage!!!
Sounds awful, I hope there wasn't too much damage? Give us a follow-up post!
If you write a plane ticket into the cake grant I can come clean the office...
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