Students in Wells Library seek shelter from storm

Students and others working in the Herman B Wells Library on Wednesday moved to the library’s basement at about 10:15 p.m. to wait out the storm that damaged Sam Mason Properties and uprooted trees across the IU campus.

Matt Duff, an auditor at the library, encouraged everyone to move from the Information Commons, which was surrounded by windows in its corner of the West Tower.

People moved slowly as they saved projects and gathered their things, but once the windows started shaking, progress was much quicker.

Once in the basement, student Max Newman called his dad. He had been in the library for about 20 minutes printing documents. He said a tree had fallen on his friend’s house during Monday’s storms.

“My house doesn’t even have a basement,” he said. “I’m worried about my friends there.”

Rising junior Tara Nei ran through the south door into the library soon after people were moved into the basement.

Duff called the basement one of the safest places on campus during a storm, and he said he would wait until confirmation from IU before advising students to leave.

“The library is very sturdy,” he said, “but it’s not built to withstand a tornado.”

Rising senior Kirsten Powell had been at the library for 10 minutes when she heard Duff advise people to go to the basement. Duff let people leave the basement around 11 p.m., when most people saw that the worst was over.

“I was a little annoyed because I thought he was overreacting,” she said after students were let out of the basement. When she heard the windows and lobby doors rattle, however, she said she was convinced.

Some students stood on the south patio, watching the storm die down. They noticed that a tree had fallen onto the patio.

The tree was one of several that fell along that street, as well as on Atwater Avenue, Second Street, Fourth Street, Seventh Street and 10th Street.

The IUBloomington Twitter feed reported this morning that the IU Police Department found no major building damage or injuries from the storm.