About 200 Kirkland House Residents Displaced Overnight After Steam Valve Malfunction Triggers Fire Alarm
The Cambridge Fire Department closed the intersection of South and Dunster streets Sunday night. Students were back in rooms in Smith Hall by 3 a.m., and the House's building manager says permanent repairs 'are not expected to affect residents.'
About 200 of Kirkland House's more than 300 residents were unable to return to their rooms Sunday night after a malfunctioning steam valve triggered a fire alarm, forcing students to find other places to sleep, The Harvard Crimson reported Monday. Roughly 100 students live in the detached Kirkland Annex, which stayed open overnight.
The Cambridge Fire Department responded to the malfunction Sunday night and closed the intersection of South and Dunster streets around 10:15 p.m., according to the Crimson. Firefighters stayed on the scene for more than three hours and began evacuating residents who remained in their rooms at 11:15 p.m. The paper reported that a large amount of steam was seen billowing from a ventilation system near the temporary kitchen in front of Eliot House, which is under renovation. An officer at the scene told the Crimson that steam was escaping from a high-pressure pipe in an underground steam room at regular intervals, sending plumes across the Eliot construction site.
In an email around 11 a.m. Monday, Kirkland House Building Manager Lucia Baldock confirmed the malfunction came from a "pressure-reducing valve and trap," part of the building's heating system, the Crimson said. An outside vendor had to assess the scene and shut down the steam system to make temporary repairs, which finished shortly after 3 a.m. A technician arrived shortly after midnight. Baldock said permanent repairs are ongoing and "not expected to affect residents."
The House's administrators communicated through the night. At 11:51 p.m., Baldock emailed students to "seek shelter in a neighboring building" while responders waited for the vendor. Kirkland Faculty Deans Downing Lu and Peter J. Huybers opened their residence to students seeking shelter while they waited for Kirkland to be cleared. Around 1:10 a.m. Monday, the deans told students the House would stay closed for the night and encouraged them to consider alternative sleeping arrangements, and directed displaced students to their residence for keys to emergency rooms in other residential Houses.
Some students were briefly allowed back in to retrieve essential items while the House was closed, accompanied by a police officer, the Crimson reported. In a 1:03 a.m. email, Resident Dean Jack Huguley told students to inform their professors if the situation affected their academics and to copy him on the message. Residents of Smith Hall were allowed back in their rooms by 3 a.m., according to an email from Baldock.
The paper's report does not say whether anyone was hurt or whether any rooms were damaged, and it did not report a cause for the valve failure. The Crimson noted that the steam plumes crossed the Eliot House construction site but did not say the renovation was related.
Eliot House, next to Kirkland, is under renovation, and a temporary kitchen stands in front of it, the Crimson said. The paper did not report any connection between that project and the steam system.
The House's address is 95 Dunster St., according to its website. Questions the university has not answered in public include how long the steam system will run on temporary repairs and when the permanent fix will be done.
