Spring Break
Lights out in three university dorms
Greg Gentile
Issue date: 11/18/08 Section: News
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Coddington, Burnside and Aldrich halls fell back into colonial times for the majority of Veterans Day.
The outage began between 7 and 8 a.m.
The cause of the blackout was the "age of the [underground power lines], and the line connections, which were over 45 years old," Jerry Sidio, director of Facility Services, said.
Facility Services installed three generators to restore electricity to the building by around 8 p.m. Tuesday. For 12 hours, students in these dorms were without power.
"They replaced the entire sections of the line that failed, to ensure no repeat failures," Sidio said.
According to Charles Hall, assistant director of Housing and Residential Life, Roger Williams, Fayweather and Gorham halls all had similar issues this summer.
When asked whether these repairs should have been addressed before the problems occurred, Hall said, "we are in that process…it takes time, and money."
"We need to remember these buildings are 40 years old, stuff like this is going to happen," he said.
Director of Housing and Residential Life, Chip Yensan said all three buildings were taken off the generators by Thursday afternoon.
Students hoping to spend their day off relaxing or studying were annoyed and frustrated.
"I think it is bullshit that I am paying this much for room and board and there were no generators ready when the power went out," sophomore Matt Baryshyan, who lives in Coddington, said.
"During Tuesday I could not eat, shower or even study in my dorm, not to mention everything went bad in my refrigerator."
Junior Shirley Pineda, also a resident of Coddington, said, "No one knew anything, not even the resident assisstants. They just pinned up a poster saying they don't know."
Shirley, like many other students, had her phone and laptop die.
Seinor Jared Benbow, an RA at Burnside, woke up to no power. He decided to do a little studying at the library while waiting for the electricity to come back on.
When he checked his e-mail, there was a message about the power outage.
"It originally told us it would be out for 30 minutes, and then we received another e-mail telling us three days. We didn't really know what to think," Benbow said.
Benbow's experience with the blackout was different than most students described. Instead of frustration and ange,; he described the "eeriness" to the dorms during the power outage.
"It was quiet, and empty, some emergency lights worked, some didn't…I remember walking around a corner and seeing a kid by himself under one of the working emergency lights reading" Benbow said.
