Students living in the East Residence Hall were left without access to medications and other essential supplies for two days after a flood required the building’s closure.
Most students were not permitted to return to their rooms due to the building’s “no occupancy” status, according to an email from the Office of Housing and Residential Life received Feb. 10 at 2:23 p.m. These students were not able to retrieve essential items such as clothing, hygiene items, food and electronics, as well as their medicine and other necessary medical equipment, until Wednesday afternoon.
An in-state student who lives on the seventh floor, Gianni Wilkinson, was unable to retrieve anything from her room. Wilkinson is recovering from surgery and is without her medication. She said the process of going back and forth with the OHRL for answers was “really painful and tiring.”
Out-of-state tenth-floor resident Sarah Jean-Baptiste was in her room when she noticed water flooding in. Jean-Baptiste said she immediately evacuated and was unable to go back to retrieve vital medication. She successfully obtained a refill for her medicine from University Health Services and picked it up at a local Star Market grocery store. The university directs residents to contact UHS via the “My Health Beacon Portal.”
While most residents on the upper floors, like Jean-Baptiste, were not allowed to return to their rooms, a select few were able to retrieve items from their dorms with a police escort early in the closure.
“I was able to return to my room and was able to grab very little clothes as they were rushing us to grab stuff and leave. Mind you, my roommate has an emotional support animal and if it wasn’t for me, the kitten would be starving as of right now with no litterbox,” ninth-floor resident Christian Echeverry said. Eyewitnesses also observed a student arguing with a UMass Boston Police officer about their service animal, which was trapped in their dorm.
Director of Communications DeWayne Lehman said residence hall staff worked with students who have service animals to retrieve them and provided supplies including food and litter. “The residence hall staff did a sweep of the affected floors for service animals and found none,” Lehman said.
When they were allowing some students to gather essentials from their dorms early in the closure, residents gathered in the East Hall’s first floor in front of the security desk. Jean-Baptiste said officials were calling students by floor number to be escorted to their rooms, but most were turned away.
“Me and my friend were on the line, and they called our floor numbers and every time they called our floor numbers they told us to go right back in the line, acted like they didn’t call our numbers,” she said. “Then they called people who needed their medications and stuff. I went up again, and they also shoved us back into the line, and then by that time it was 5 p.m. and they claimed that they couldn’t let anybody up anymore, and they kicked us all out.”
This article appeared in print on Page 5 of Volume LX, No. 10, published Feb. 16, 2025. Read our live coverage for more information as the story develops.
