Damaged fire hydrant floods Rieber Terrace

Flooding caused by a damaged fire hydrant led to the evacuation of students and personnel from a flooded Rieber Terrace building Saturday morning.

Sometime between midnight and 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, a broken fire hydrant flooded the area between Hedrick Hall and Rieber Terrace. Peter Angelis, assistant vice chancellor for housing and hospitality services, said it is unclear whether the hydrant was already damaged or if a truck may have loosened it from its spot.

An electrical control room was flooded with about four feet of water, which caused a power outage in Rieber Terrace. A fire alarm soon followed, and the building’s residents were forced to evacuate. The Los Angeles Fire Department, UCLA Facilities Management and university police responded to the incident and worked to sort the situation out.

Though the flooding did some damage to the carpet in the Rieber Terrace lobby, most of the damage was confined to the electrical control room.

Rieber Terrace’s 205 summer residents include medical and dental students as well as orientation counselors and other staff, though most of the residents were away when the incident occurred. By about 3 p.m., all of the guests had been temporarily relocated to other dorms, Angelis said.

“All in all, we were very fortunate that is wasn’t worse,” he said.

Angelis said residents are expected to move back in as soon as the electricity returns, which is expected to be sometime late Tuesday or Wednesday.