News | October 29th, 2019
Major Flooding in Onyx Apartments
By: Aiyana Ishmael
Blaring alarms woke the residents of Onyx apartments late last night. What many assumed to be the occasional false alarm during a stormy night soon was revealed to be incoming water damage caused by a burst pipe.
“I woke up when the alarm started going off,” Danielle Handal, an Onyx resident said. “It was so loud. Normally, because it goes off a lot we never get up, but it was happening for a long time so we opened our doors and saw people standing in the hallway. We figured other people were getting out.”
Onyx apartments is a complex that advertises itself as a housing option for Florida State University students. Around 2 a.m., residents were met with loud noises similar to what could have been the rain outside. Students soon realized that the water was coming from inside the building. Crowding the downstairs lobby, Onyx residents waited to see what exactly was going on.
“We were there for 30 minutes before the fire department got there,” Handal said. “There was no staff or anything there because it was after 2 a.m. People brought their pets with them, so there were dogs everywhere running around.”
Handal and many other residents found out through other students that there was a major leak that started on the fifth floor. Onyx has an entrance from both Park and College avenues. The Park Avenue entrance was the main source of damage. Everyone from the fifth floor down near the entrance experienced flooding in the hallways.
After reaching out to Onyx apartments they “respectfully declined” to make a statement. However, they did state that there was an email sent out to all residents and guarantors that a restoration team is working on the issue right now. They also stated in the email that “if fans or dehumidifiers are placed in units, [residents] must leave them on in order to get the units dry in a timely manner.”
Emma Safon, a resident at Onyx, was told by friends that they might put residents in hotel rooms until their apartment is liveable. But, there is a concern that there is no available hotels being that FSU football plays University of Miami this Saturday.
Jordan Hale, another resident living on the fourth floor, witnessed the water damage in their apartment firsthand. She originally did not leave after the alarms went off and was stuck inside with other residents on their hall.
“There was water all outside my door in the carpeted hallway,” Hale said. “Our apartment was below the floor where the actual water was coming from so thankfully the only damage was mainly in our kitchen and bathrooms with water coming from the fixtures in our roofs. We kept going back and forth between our apartment and the floor above.”
Hale and her roommate stayed at their apartment because they wanted to keep dumping out pots that were catching the water leaking from their roof into their kitchen and bathrooms.
“We haven’t heard anything else,” Handal said. “Nothing, except for students just talking amongst themselves, posting on snapchat or sending photos. Now there’s dehumidifiers everywhere just trying to dry it up, because it’s going to smell really bad.”
Floors six, seven and the College Ave side were not damaged. Residents now await to see what will happen to their apartments and whether or not it will be comfortable to stay in.
Updates to this story will be made as more information is released.
