Flooding in Lockett Hall Thursday morning canceled some classes that afternoon. Other courses continued during the morning flooding, prompting concern from students.
“I hope this is a sign for LSU to clean things up,” said forensic chemistry freshman Stella Roberts, whose afternoon history class was canceled.
Nearly three inches of rain fell on campus Wednesday night into early Thursday, according to data from East Baton Rouge WeatherSTEM’s Tiger Stadium weather station.
READ MORE: Flooding in Locket Hall cancels class, prompts concern
The high volume of rain in a short period of time caused water to seep through Lockett Hall’s basement floor in one room, according to the Assistant Director of Operations for Facility Services Gerald Sansoni. Pooling water also seeped through the building’s exterior walls into three Lockett Hall rooms, he said in an email to the Reveille.
“Our custodial staff responded immediately as soon as the Customer Service Center received the call, and they used mops and wet vacs to remove water in the affected areas,” Sansoni said.
The flooding was “mild,” according to Sansoni. Students described a wet floor and pools of water a few inches deep in the Lockett Hall basement.
By 9:30 a.m. most of the water had been removed; although a large puddle remained in room B9.
Some early morning classes continued through the flooding, including a section of general horticulture in that same room.
Industrial engineering freshman Rita Ntipouna arrived to the 9 a.m. class half an hour early. She and other students had to find a way over or through the water to get to their seats. Ntipouna said the class should have been canceled then and there.
“If you look in that spot, there’s a bunch of open outlets, wires,” Ntipouna said. ”It could have been really dangerous, especially if something were to like catch electric.”
Students who spoke to the Reveille were unsurprised by conditions in Lockett Hall. The building is notorious for its disrepair.
In 2019, a leak originating in room B9 caused ceiling tiles to fall into three Lockett classrooms. The same month, a burst pipe closed another room for a week. Classes have also been periodically closed when the building’s air conditioning stops working.
Animal science sophomore Hannah McCann, whose Thursday class in Lockett was unaffected by the flooding, said her freshman year classes in the basement were frequently closed because the rooms were too hot.
“And I’m not from here, so I wasn’t really used to the weather,” McCann said. Even when classes continued, “it was kind of unbearable,” she said.
Locket Hall’s Thursday flooding sparked another long-standing and prominent pain point. Students pointed to the disparity between LSU’s academic and athletic facilities to make sense of the water in Lockett Hall.
“A lot of places need fixing, and they’re putting their money elsewhere when it’s about the students, should be about the students,” Ntipouna said. “They kind of don’t care.”
Animal sciences senior Shelby Pugh echoed a similar sentiment as she waited for her next class in Lockett.
“It seems like they put all their stuff into athletics, which I get it,” Pugh said. “It makes them the most money. But I work on the LSU farm right now, and that could be updated too. And I know it’s not like LSU’s fault, but I think they should put top priority into everything, not just one thing.”
The Advocate found in 2016 that LSU was the only Southeastern Conference school to raise more in donations for athletics than academics.
A 2022 report from the Reveille found that the university has more than $600 million in deferred maintenance. Lockett Hall accounts for more than $10 million of that total.
Other breaking buildings have drawn attention on campus. Most recently: Patrick F. Taylor Hall’s disruptive flooding. Most emblematically: the long and watery degradation of LSU’s main library.
The north side of PFT closed for an undetermined period of time after water poured through ceilings and damaged expensive equipment on the first day of the semester.
LSU’s main library has seen water enter its walls from above and below. In 2018, the library’s basement flooded, causing an estimated $1 million in damage.
“I can’t overstate what an emergency it is and the danger it poses to this incredibly wonderful research library,” said Dean of LSU Libraries Stanley Wilder at the time. “We’re in crisis mode down there.”
Since then, the library’s caving fourth floor ceiling has become a symbol of the university’s crumbling academic infrastructure.
Few students know that both LSU’s main library and Lockett Hall have been slated for demolition since 2017.
LSU’s Master Plan, ratified that year, proposed Lockett be replaced by greenspace and its classrooms relocated to newer buildings. The plan also outlined the relocation of LSU’s main library from the Quad to an area just south of Tiger Stadium.
Little progress has been made on either front. Both the library and Lockett Hall continue to slowly self-destruct.
Though few are aware of the university’s long-standing but unacted plan to demolish both buildings, students have also marked them for destruction.
Forensic chemistry freshman Stella Roberts sat on the floor near a puddle in Lockett Hall Thursday morning. Her next class in the basement had just been canceled. When she realized she would not be having history that day, Roberts reflected on the state of Lockett Hall.
“Get them to tear it down,” she said.
A wet floor sign stands at the west entrance to Lockett Hall's basement after flooding on Thursday, Jan. 25 on LSU's campus in Baton Rouge, La.
