Wednesday, November 14, 2001

Power outage frustrates campus
By Jordan Blum
Staff Reporter

Ryan Hahn said he woke up sweating from the muggy heat in his room Tuesday morning and realized the power was out in his residence hall. Then he took a freezing cold shower and watched the groceries in his Micro Fridge go bad.

“It’s just been a big hassle all day,” said Hahn, a resident assistant in Martin-Moore Hall. “A lot of my residents overslept for class, and I’ve pretty much had to hang out in the library all day because I can’t stand being in my room.”

Electrical power was out in the Rickel Building, Moncrief Hall and all of the buildings in the Worth Hills area, and the power outage affected various aspects of student life throughout the day.

George Bates, the electrical manager for the Physical Plant, said electrical cable line malfunctions caused the power failure and that the outage lasted from 4 a.m. until about 8 p.m. Tuesday.

“We had an underground cable failure that occurred in one of the manholes on campus of such a magnitude we couldn’t fix the problem in just a few hours,” Bates said Tuesday evening. “When you have cables all over the place and about 50 manholes on campus it takes a lot of research and exploration to track down the source of the problem.”

Bates said the source of the problem was discovered at approximately 1:30 p.m. and Physical Plant team members were working with Lonestar Electric Co. employees to reconfigure the cable network.

Deterioration of the cables’ insulation because of age and environmental factors caused the power outage, he said.

“The cable was in an underground bank that was immersed in water for a long period of time,” Bates said. “All cable eventually fails and needs to be fixed.”

The Student Government Association elections were also affected by the power outages on campus.

Larry Markley, advisor for the SGA, said the deadline for casting votes was extended until midnight because some students had trouble voting because of the power outages.

He said the additional hours should be more than enough because more than 1,100 votes had already been cast by 2 p.m.

Roger Fisher, director for Residential Services, said students were unable to use their identification cards to enter residence halls in areas of campus where electrical power was out.

Students could only enter these residence halls through the main entrance Tuesday to avoid any potential safety concerns caused by propping all doors open, Fisher said.

The Rickel Building closed at 5 p.m. Tuesday and all intramural basketball games were canceled.

Intramural sports supervisor Damien Abel said a new schedule will be worked out today.

“We’re going to have to play it by ear,” Abel said. “We don’t want to have to extend the season so we’ll probably either reschedule the games maybe on Sunday or just cut a week out of the season.

“Club sports are impacted too, because they won’t have lights for the intramural fields,” Abel said.

Colin Philips, a sophomore business major, said the power outage ruined his schedule for the day.

“It really bothered me the power went out today,” Philips said. “I had a 10-page paper to do, and I couldn’t do it in my room and all the library and campus computers were full because no one could work in their rooms.”

Jordan Blum
j.d.blum@student.tcu.edu