The heavy rainstorms that hit California came down heavily on the 5C area on Sunday, Feb. 4 and stayed through Tuesday, Feb. 6. During this period, Claremont received an uncharacteristically high 7.93 inches of rain that resulted in significant consequences for the 5Cs.
From Mount Baldy temporarily closing its ski lifts to colleges in the area canceling classes, Southern California struggled to stay afloat.
Due to the storms, the 5C campuses faced issues resulting from the extended rain and flooding including power outages, building leaks, dining hall closures and canceled classes.
A power outage caused by damage to the campuses’ main electrical feeders on Tuesday, Feb. 6 pushed Pomona’s dining halls to close due to “food safety issues,” but they were able to open later that day as necessary repairs had been made.
“The power has been restored,” an email from Campus Safety stated. “If you have any concerns regarding a specific space due to the power outage please contact Campus Safety.”
Other areas of campus life were not as easily mitigated during the storm, with one student, Kate Cheng CM ’27, facing issues in her residence hall.
“We have really bad drainage because our residence halls are built into a hill,” Cheng said. “So we had to have a lot of sandbags around the entrances.”
In Crown Hall, where Cheng lives, the doors’ safety locks stopped working, leaving students stranded outside until the door was propped open with a hazard cone. In addition to issues resulting from the power outage, the residence halls faced threats of flooding from the insistent downpour. Cheng recounted water seeping into her dorm room, soaking the carpet underneath the window.
“[In] my room specifically, my window was not open, but it was the seam between the window frame and the rest of the wall [that was leaking],” Cheng said.
The storm also caused certain traffic difficulties on campus, compromising the safety of students and faculty. On Feb. 5, students received a campus safety email about a manhole that had loosened because of flooding, causing the closure of Dartmouth Avenue at Eighth and Tenth Streets.
Many professors had concerns about the safety regarding commutes to campus and classes for both faculty and students, resulting in some professors choosing to hold their classes online.
After receiving flash flood warnings, Pitzer College professor Andrea Acosta emailed her section of Intro to Digital Media Studies regarding the potential switch to Zoom in order to accommodate her students.
“In that email I asked each person to tell me if they anticipated having issues and about three students told me either they didn’t live in the dorms, or they were living off campus and then I had one student coming in from Upland,” Acosta said. “Getting those responses Sunday night definitely swayed my decision to Zoom, even before Monday morning.”
As noted by Acosta, many students and professors do not live on or near campus. As a result, when it comes to extreme weather events, the 5C community is not only affected by the conditions on campus, but also by the conditions in the greater LA area.
“I live in Pasadena, which is about a 33 to 35-minute drive away from campus and is also a new area for me,” Acosta said. “The half-hour commute combined with little visibility combined with flash flood warnings, as well as my unfamiliarity with that region, in terms of how bad it can get, all were contributing factors.”
Despite the disruptions for many members of the 5Cs, since Feb. 6, Campus Security has reported no further damages and regular activity has been allowed to resume.
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