WASHINGTON — Scores of students at Georgetown University are scrambling. They've been ordered out of their dorm right in the middle of midterms.
The school is worried a heavy snow might collapse the roof on their building.
"You can't just tell students on the Monday before a long weekend that they have until Friday to move out, when it's in the middle of midterms," said one of the students. She didn't want to give her name for fear of retaliation.
The university has ordered 85 students on the top floor of Alumni Square to pack up their stuff and move across campus to the Georgetown Hotel and Conference Center.
"We were given less than a week's notice to completely evacuate," another student complained.
Maintenance crews found a problem on the roof after students complained about a leak. The fear in the worst case is that heavy snow or high winds could put too much pressure on the beams supporting the roof and potentially cause it to collapse into the apartments on the top floor.
The already stressed students complain to professors have cut them little slack. "I had technically 48 hours to do all this," said one student. " Also, I got strep throat on Monday, so I couldn't go to any of my classes this week because I was sick, and I also had to move out."
"This is midterms week. I had three papers. I had two exams. They're not doing anything," said another.
Georgetown insists it's doing a lot: providing the displaced students free housing, free laundry, and free food for the semester.
It's also asked faculty to accommodate students upset by the sudden move. But many students say the school needs to do more. "We're supposed to call this home, but it's feeling a lot less like it sometimes," said one student.
Georgetown is also storing the students large items or shipping them home.A spokesman apologizes to the students for the hassle, but says their safety is the school's top priority.