Community BRIEFS

Smoke Sends Stoughton Hall Residents Into Freezing Cold

Steam exhaust filled a basement laundry room in Stoughton Hall shortly after 10:30 p.m. last night, setting off a fire alarm and sending approximately 60 first-year students out into the cold.

The steam, which began to fill the room when a belt came off one of the drying units, heated the room to more than 125 degrees, according to radio tranmissions between Harvard University security personnel.

Students waited in freezing temperatures in Harvard Yard for about fifteen minutes before being allowed back inside the dorm.

"It was miserable. This was the second time this has happened," said Mike D. Layden '98.

Both sections of Stoughton, North and south, were evacuated.

"Considering it was like ten degrees, my face was going to freeze," said Hollis resident Ivan Velasco Jr. '98, who was visiting friends at the time of the alarm.

The laundry room's fire alarm could not be reset immediately, but a sprinkling system remained in place last night.

David M. Lange '94, a proctor in the dorm, said only: "cold night, bad timing."