Power outage displaces students
Published April 20, 2007
Residents of Gillett and Hudson residence halls were left in the dark Tuesday when the Rollins group of residence halls lost power due to an electrical fire.
Gillett and Hudson residence halls, and the Rollins dining facility lost power shortly before 8:30 p.m., and residents were evacuated at 8:33 p.m. after students reported that they smelled smoke.
The fire only damaged a transformer in an electrical distribution room and did not cause structural damage to the buildings. When the building lost power, two people were still inside a stopped elevator. Columbia Fire Battalion Chief Steven Sapp said firefighters were able to successfully remove both students from the elevator with no injuries.
Some students, including junior Mark Peper, were working on class work when the outage occurred.
"Luckily I'd started (a biochemistry quiz) earlier and saved, so I didn't lose anything," Peper said.
Others had homework due or tests scheduled for the next morning.
"I know of people who had papers due at 8 a.m.," sophomore Nick Woodbury said. "I would be surprised if people weren't stressed."
Woodbury created a Rollins refugees group on Facebook.
Residential Academic Programs Associate Director Kristen Temple said residence hall staff members provided students with letters explaining the situation to faculty members in case students had tests or other academic obligations Wednesday morning.
To make some of the repairs, workers had to turn off power to the grid including the Rollins group, College Avenue residence hall and the Plaza 900 dining facility.
Although Plaza 900 was mostly unoccupied at the time, College Avenue residence hall had to evacuate all of its approximately 350 residents.
Sapp said the College Avenue residents were warned before the power was cut.
"(Residential Life staff) didn't want to have people in there and try to evacuate them out through the dark," he said.
The additional evacuation was an odd twist of fate for junior Meredith Davis, who went to College Avenue after she was forced out of Gillett.
"I thought I could get away from it all," she said. "My safety plan fell through."
Several students made plans to stay elsewhere for the night since they were told residents wouldn't be able to return until around 1:30 a.m. if the repairs went smoothly.
Residential Life staff had considered opening the Hearnes Center to house students, Sapp said.
Assistant Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Jeff Zeilenga informed residents that Brady Commons and Memorial Union were still open as places for displaced students to pass the time. Along with the Gaines/Oldham Black Culture Center, the two buildings also served as points for Residential Life staff to alert students to when their buildings reopened.
In Brady Commons, T.A. Brady's offered free bowling and billiards to approximately 100 displaced students.
College Avenue and Plaza 900 were reopened by midnight, and students were allowed back into Hudson and Gillett at approximately 1:30 a.m. According to Temple, when the residents re-entered, a generator was providing power to the Rollins building.
Campus Facilities scheduled an additional power outage to the buildings Wednesday afternoon in order to transfer power from the generator to the transformer and install new fuses to prevent similar incidents in the future.
The Rollins dining hall remained closed for breakfast and lunch on Wednesday, but it was reopened to serve dinner that evening.
"The residents of Gillett and Hudson were extremely patient with this unfortunate situation, were very cooperative and kept good spirits as they waited for updates," Hudson Hall Coordinator James Heim said.
— Staff writer Chris Dunn contributed to this report
