Lightning Crashed! Thunder rolled! The Residents of Reeves remained steadfast!

A malfunction of two smoke detection units on the Third Floor of Reeves Hall occurred on Wedensday, September 22.  Perhaps as a result of the lightning storm which was then raging, two of the smoke detection heads ceased functioning.  Any event which compromises the fire detection system triggers an evacuation of a building and a call from the monitoring agency to the Hackettstown Fire Department. 

Replacement of the faulty heads, a common and usually quickly accomplished repair on a residential campus, was complicated by the storm which had moved to Hudson County.  The lightning and thunder had by then settled over Jersey City and were complicating the lives of the repairpersons.  Their forty-five minute journey took them closer to two hours.

During their four and a half hour diaspora, the residents of Reeves could be found eating in Lackland Center, hanging in the rooms and apartments of their friends and playing board games in the lobby or basketball on the Court of Reeves gymnasium.  To a person, they negotiated their soggy and homeless state with patience.

Meanwhile, several Facilities staff members returned to campus to dismember a large oak tree which had fallen across Jefferson Street during the storm.  Members of the crew took about five hours to chop up the huge tree.  The tree fall (actually one of two that night) was not the cause of the Reeves evacuation.