It appears that flood season has come early this year for those who live in Penn's high-rise residences. And those who live on the fifth floor of Hamilton College House can tell you that it's no picnic.
But Wednesday's flood in Hamilton is just the most recent in a series of incidents that remind all of us that the plumbing in these three-decade-old buildings is woefully inadequate.
College sophomore Mehul Bhatt, whose room was damaged Wednesday, is right when he says "we don't have sound living conditions."
Power outages, floods and water shutdowns are now occurring at a pace you could set a watch by. How could anyone consider these to be sound living conditions?
This is not a new problem, but so far there is no solution on the horizon.
It should come as no surprise to the University, then, that more and more students are choosing to live off campus.
If Penn seriously wants to bring undergraduates back to campus housing, it needs to convince them that they are working on these nagging facilities problems.
Fixing aging pipes is a large, costly endeavor. But it should be high on Penn's priority list.
Needless to say, another Band-Aid solution won't do.
