KRUI, the student-run radio station on the University of Iowa’s campus, is running on backup programming after their studio faced severe water damage on the first day of classes.
Exactly what damages occurred is still in the diagnostic stage, though they are estimated to be worth several thousand dollars.
Students at the station say they temporarily relocated to their third-floor studio in the Iowa Memorial Union on Aug. 26.
Excessive heat on Aug. 25 led to late-night power outages in several university buildings on the east side of campus, including the IMU where the KRUI studio is housed.
The particularly hot weather led to an overflow of the condensate lines — a part of HVAC system, which removes moisture — in the IMU, according to KRUI student lead Tiger Slowinski.
When an air conditioner extracts enough moisture from the air, a steady trickle of water forms on the pipes within an air conditioning unit, which is what caused the damage.
An Aug. 30 post on KRUI’s Facebook announced the damage and next steps for the station.
The post stated water damage earlier in the week impacted their technology and infrastructure, putting all shows on hold. A tentative timeline is in place as the studio runs on a backup system. For the remainder of the semester, shows will broadcast from a secondary location.
The bulk of the damage was done to the KRUI main studio mixing console and its electronic components, interim KRUI staff advisor David Rooney wrote in an email to the DI. Currently, the mixing board is disassembled and undergoing testing to see if it is still operable.
The outcome of the tests will determine whether the equipment needs to be fully or partially replaced or just repaired, Rooney wrote. Replacements and repairs could extend into the thousands.
“Hopefully the recovery efforts were quick enough for minimal damage,” Rooney wrote. “We’re hoping for the best.”
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It’s not the first time KRUI encounter water damage, as the facility was one of many victims of the historic 2008 Iowa River flooding, Kembrew McLeod, KRUI’s faculty advisor, said. When it became clear the IMU was going to flood in 2008, students and staff moved all radio equipment to the basement of Slater Hall, where KRUI was housed for a year while the IMU underwent repairs.
KRUI also saw the studio close in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic shut down all non-essential services, McLeod said.
“I just have every confidence that KRUI is going to come back stronger than ever,” McLeod said. “That happened after the pandemic, because the pandemic was another existential crisis for the station.”
For the time being, all live shows are on pause, Slowinski said. The station is able to run music on an automated backup system.
“I would say the average listener who just turns on for music might not hear much difference, if they’re noticing that,” Rooney said. “But if it’s a regular listener, they’ll notice there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of voices on.”
For the foreseeable future, KRUI shows will broadcast from a secondary studio just down the hallway from the primary one, Slowinski said.
Despite the challenges the new school year has brought on, Slowinski has every confidence that KRUI students and staff can adapt to the hardships.
“Now that the broadcast is gone, the other things we have at the station become a lot more apparent they’ve been there,” Slowinski said. “It lets us lean into some other aspects of the station.”