Gabriella Tutino/The Mirror
The majority of college students expect candy, booze and costumed fun on Halloween weekend. Fairfield students were definitely not expecting a snowstorm and a power outage.
Snow began to fall this past Saturday morning. Towards mid-afternoon, the snow began to stick and pile up, causing Fairfield’s campus to turn into an early white Christmas. The snow, however, wasn’t the only event that tried to put a damper on Halloween celebrations.
According to Nathan Lubich, the Assistant Director of Resident Life for Dolan Hall and the townhouses, power went out in the townhouses late Saturday evening. This power outage coincided with a power outage in the town of Fairfield.
“Because the townhouse complex is on the town’s power grid, when portions of the town lose power so do the Townhouses,” said Lubich. The town of Fairfield reported that 3,107 residents lost power due to fallen trees, according to Lubich.
Senior Melanie Cannon was one of the students affected by the power outage Saturday night. “I was notified by Public Safety officers walking around the 8, 9 and 10 blocks around 10:30 p.m. on Saturday to let us know that the power is officially out but they did not know when the power would come back – they assumed anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours,” Cannon said.
Lubich also explained the Residence Life response to the situation, noting that staff members from the Office of Residence Life “went door-to-door to each house affected and informed the students of the issue and let them know that they could go to the BCC for assignment to temporary housing if they were unable to make plans to stay with friends.” He also sent out e-mails to the affected townhouse blocks.
The townhouse blocks that lost power were 1-10, 14-15 and the single house unit 127.
On Sunday at 3 p.m, a StagAlert message and e-mail went out to students. Power had still not been restored, and the message encouraged students without power to make living arrangements with their friends or to contact ResLife for assistance.
The response to a power outage depends on housing needs, Lubich explained. If there’s a major outage, students would be sent to the Barone Campus Center, similar to the blackout that occurred last March. According to Lubich, dorms have emergency lighting that is battery-operated. If the power outage exceeds the battery life of the emergency lighting, the dorms are no longer safe for residents, and then the school would make alternative arrangements, Lubich said.
“I think ResLife did the best that it could in regards to the power outage situation, although I would have appreciated a call from the University earlier in the day on Sunday letting us know that they were aware that the power was still out,” Cannon said. “All of us without power were allowed to go to Barone for free Sunday night and Monday morning but Sunday lunch would have been nice too, because we could not do anything in our cold houses.”
According to the Department of Public Safety, power was restored to the townhouses around 2:15 a.m Monday morning.
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