Major Utility Problems
Facilities Issues

Major Utility Problems
If you discover a water leak, gas leak, or other major utility failure, call Facilities Services at (504) 865-5445. Please notify a Resident Advisor in the area, or the area front desk. Please give as much information as possible about the location and nature of the emergency to help ensure an appropriate response.

In the event of a utility outage, please stay alert for notices posted around your building or via email about changing conditions. Up-to-date information will be passed along to students as it becomes available. Due to the ongoing restoration of city infrastructure throughout the greater New Orleans region, we cannot guarantee that notice of utility shutdowns will be readily available prior to the event. All attempts will be made to inform affected residents as soon as possible. In the event of a power outage, please remember that candles are prohibited items in all University housing. Students are advised to keep a working flashlight with their personal belongings that they can locate and use in such an event.

Non-emergency repairs follow a different procedure. For information on how to submit everyday concerns to Facilities Services through ServiceWave, click here.

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Facilities Issues

Elevators
Students who become trapped in elevators should remain calm and ring the alarm button in the elevator to signal help. Sounding the alarm under false pretense can be considered a violation of the Code of Student Conduct. Additional calls can be made for assistance by contacting the Department of Public Safety at (504) 865-5200 via any cell phone. If no reception is available, students should continue to ring the alarm button at frequent intervals in order to signal their need for assistance.

If you are responding to an elevator situation, first evaluate the situation. Do not try to rescue anyone from an elevator without professional assistance, as this may put the elevator passengers in greater danger. After evaluating the situation, please call Emergency Facilities Services at (504) 865-5445 or x5445 from any campus phone. Immediately afterwards, notify the Department of Public Safety at (504) 865-5200 or x5200 from any campus phone. Students should also notify the front desk of the building in question as soon as possible.

Bodily Fluids

In the event that students should discover bodily fluids (blood, vomit, etc.) in a public area of a dormitory, they are asked to call Emergency Facilities Services immediately at (504) 865-5445 or x5445 from any campus phone and submit a ServiceWave request for clean-up. Students should then notify their front desk and Resident Advisor. A damage billing charge may be applied to the incident. Please refer to Community Damage Billing on the Housing and Residence Life website for more information.

Everyday Maintenance Concerns
Normal maintenance issues occurring in the halls that do not pose immediate threats to students’ health and safety should be submitted to Facilities Services online via the ServiceWave system at http://servicewave.tulane.edu. For a complete building guide for your residence hall please visit your residence hall webpage.

[Technical note: students having trouble accessing the ServiceWave website on their computer are advised to hit their browser's "back" button twice. This should remedy the problem and allow the submission of the request.]

Problems that should properly be submitted to ServiceWave include:

• small damages to dorm rooms (i.e. broken blinds or closet doors)
• burnt out light bulbs: fluorescent or those of a non-incandescent variety (students are responsible for their own personal dorm lights, unless they are not incandescent) or nonfunctioning lights
• malfunctioning plumbing (i.e. showers that will not turn on)
• any other maintenance concern that is an inconvenience but not an emergency.

Problems that should be phoned in to Emergency Facilities Services include:

• problems which will immediately grow if they are not taken care of (such as a broken shower which will not turn OFF, and is causing a flood)
• problems in which a cleanup crew is necessary. Facilities Services will contact UNNICO, which will dispatch a cleanup team.

A note to students:
Emergency Facilities Services is staffed 24 hours a day, but only a few technicians are available after hours for the entire campus. Thus, as these technicians must be available to contain emergencies across the entire campus, they will CONTAIN the emergency until a Facilities Services technician can be dispatched during normal hours to complete remediation of the problem.

Furniture Maintenance
If you are experiencing issues with your residence hall room furniture or furniture in the common area of your hall, please send an email to applyhrl@tulane.edu. In the email include your name, hall and room number, and the issue that you are having with your furniture.

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