It’s been a rough couple of weeks for students living in the East Campus. Early last week many residents lost their Internet connection for days at a time. Then on Wednesday night students in LXR and Nevils were hit by a power outage that lasted into Thursday morning. The situation was exacerbated by the largest snowstorm of the year, which hindered efforts to restore power. The well-being and safety of the students, who were forced out of their pitch black rooms into the storm, should have been the top priority of administrators that night, but, as is often the case, the University’s response was marked by poor communication and poor planning.
Last week’s power outage made clear that administrators have learned little since the botched response to the DMT lab in Harbin Hall. Even hours after power went out, there was no clear message coming from the top, and residents were largely left without answers from the University. An email from the East Campus hall director sent shortly after 5:30 p.m. said that facilities was continuing its efforts to address the problem and told students to “expect a more detailed email from the Office of Housing Services soon.” That email didn’t come until after 10:30 p.m., more than five hours later. It notified students that power would likely not be back until the morning and that Yates and Sellinger would remain open for the night.
Someone with more authority than a hall director should have been in contact with students much earlier, letting them know where they could spend the night in the event that power couldn’t be restored. Things only got more disorganized when the University attempted to open up rooms across the campus for the displaced students. One email to the residents of Nevils, who were still without power, suggested that they may be asked to take in LXR residents for the night.
The blackout debacle revealed a lack of planning on the part of the University. There are a number of established procedures in the event of fire, as evidence by the fairly well-coordinated response to last year’s fire in New South. It seems there are none for conditions that make residences uninhabitable. Keeping Yates and Sellinger open all night does not constitute an adequate response. Air mattresses were provided to a lucky few students who found refuge with friends, but they weren’t available in sufficient enough numbers to make a difference. A more effective measure would have been to open up a common space, and put down places to sleep there so that students would have had a simple and accessible refuge for the night.
Hundreds of students should never be left without a comfortable place to sleep for the night, essentially forced to fend for themselves in the midst of a massive snowstorm. If this and the DMT incident are any indications, the University needs better backup plans.
