A day without water for most of Green St. began on Feb. 14 after the City of Northampton found a water main break near Sage Hall. The first email from Smith Facilities Management was sent early in the afternoon and suggested water service would be restored in the following hour. Five on-campus houses were impacted, as well as several other on-campus buildings, until around 9 a.m. the following day.
Facilities soon shared that “the City of Northampton [had] informed [the College] that the water main repair [was] taking longer than expected.” The message also included a list of mostly academic buildings that still had running water for students to use the bathroom.
The water outage prevented students living on Green St. from using the toilets, sinks, showers, dishwashers and laundry machines in their houses. Many students, in fact, had to accept the offer of water in academic buildings for brushing their teeth, using the restroom, filling their water bottles and doing any other daily function involving water.
The Director of Residence Life, Hannah Durrant, believed “students were not happy about the situation but understood that the water main break had to be fixed.”
“People were definitely nervous and confused,” said Tyler House President (HP) Helen Sher ’24.
“It made a lot of people really anxious… people were crying… people had such a wide variety of reactions,” echoed Daniel Friend ’24, Lawrence House President.
“It was interesting for me as a student leader to see how when things change so quickly, how it makes people really freak out, even if the change itself isn’t really a long term or dramatic impact. It really got to some people. I think because students are high-strung and anxious and stressed out all the time because of academics and mental health stuff, little changes can sometimes trigger really big reactions from Smith students.” He explained that “when something unexpected and random like this comes along, especially something that deviates routine,” the result can be the anxiety he noticed in Lawrence.”
Sophie Song ’24 does not live on Green St. but, when asked about the water outage, said, “It’s something I don’t want to experience,” based on her friends’ accounts of the “uncomfortable and inconvenient” situation.
Although some students struggled with the outage, others found it to be a minor inconvenience. Friend said, “To me, it wasn’t a big deal… I kind of wish it could have been a little more fun.”
Both HPs mentioned this other side of the residential experience without water, which could be funny and lighthearted. Sher said that jokes and memes about the outage “took some of the edge off.” Friend said, “the students who were able to turn it into a lighthearted [thing] ended up much better off.” He explained that “Seelye Hall was so funny late at night” when something as routine as brushing teeth was moved to this unusual location. He described brushing his teeth in one of his own regular academic workspaces elsewhere on campus.
Neither HP received additional information or prior warning about water being shut off in their houses because of the unexpected nature of the outage.
When The Sophian asked a member of the Tyler dining staff about the water outage, they said management knew about the situation earlier but failed to communicate it as quickly as they could have to Tyler staff. The staff member said this made it difficult to plan ahead by collecting water to save.
Tyler’s dining hall was forced to close for dinner, leaving no dining options on Green St. “The water went off during the lunch period, and so there were plates piling up and dinner was not able to be served,” Sher said. Dining workers eventually moved food from Tyler to another house to be prepared and served.
Jim Gray, Associate VP for Facilities and Operations at Smith, said that the College has been impacted by water main breaks before and that it “happens occasionally.” Gray helped direct the College’s response to the recent break.
Durrant said, “If a longer-term water outage would occur, the College’s Emergency Response Team (ERT) would meet to develop a plan to support residential students and other campus community members. The ERT would have the ability to request additional resources and develop relocation plans if need be.”
During this shorter-term outage, students adapted. Sher learned, “while you technically can brush your teeth in Ford, Seelye or the CC, it is not recommended” — except when it’s by the College.
