Rossana Woo
Due to 65 mph winds in the San Fernando Valley, a power outage affected most of the Pierce College campus along with parts of the Valley and Los Angeles Thursday at approximately 12:45 p.m.
According to Dubinsky, manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, who did not give a first name, strong winds caused power lines to collapse as well as trees to topple over, knocking down power lines.
“Paul Nieman called me immediately and started mobilizing his people to place generators in areas that have a critical need for power,” said Pierce President Robert Garber. Garber noted that the first priority was to get power back to the Sheriff’s station.
Though Pierce was able to regain power within a few hours, many other parts of the Valley suffered with no electricity for longer periods of time.
On Friday, The Los Angeles Times reported that about 17,000 customers of the DWP in the Valley alone lost power.
In Los Angeles, it was about 109,000 customers.
The Times reported on Saturday that more than 30,000 residents of Los Angeles still had no power including areas of Sherman Oaks, Hollywood, South Los Angeles and Mt. Olympus.
“They’re working as safely and diligently as possible, at this time (Friday evening). There is no estimate time of restoral at this time,” Dubinsky said. “Crews are working 24 hours around the clock.”
According to Carol Tucker, DWP spokeswoman, by Monday, “All homes that were affected have had their power restored and were about to normal operating conditions.”
At Pierce, the blackout occurred in all parts of the campus east of Mason Avenue. Only the agriculture science and plant facilities buildings were not affected by the outage.
According to Christine Valada, plant facilities assistant administrative analyst, buildings at Pierce were powered up again by 4 p.m.
According to Valarie Hazelwood, construction and maintenance planner and scheduler in plant facilities, the DWP was immediately contacted after the blackout occurred.
At the time, Hazelwood had sketchy information regarding the situation because DWP did not have a lot of information to give.
Around campus, classrooms, buildings and offices put up with the effects of the power outage.
For ASO President Abraham White, the blackout cut short the free screening of “An Inconvenient Truth,” which was scheduled to begin at 12:30 p.m.
“We had everyone in the room, we had Professor [Pat] Brown there with her class and we were all ready to go and then the power went out,” he said. “We were still setting up though so we hadn’t started the movie yet.”
Hoping to do another screening soon, White said, “We hope to do more events like this when there aren’t blackouts.”
For student Shervin Aghamir, the blackout played a hand in cutting her Math 227 class with Professor Laureano short.
The quiz her class had scheduled for that day, however, still took place.
But because the power had gone down, her professor could not make copies of the quiz to pass out.
“The door was open, the dust was in, so the air blew the hair of many people while they were taking the test,” Aghamir said. “[The door] was the only source of light. It was a very primitive way of taking a test.”
In places where there was no escaping the blackout, an electrical maintenance crew was working on getting generators to classrooms and buildings around campus that needed electricity.
Adolfo Godinaz, plant facilities maintenance assistant for electricity, said that classrooms with labs, such as the life science building, as well as buildings with refrigerators, were the first to receive generators.
Godinaz said, in the five years he worked at Pierce, he doesn’t remember a time when the generators had to be used for power outages.
“[Blackouts] don’t happen often,” he said.
In the library, lights went out and computers shut down, yet a few students still remained.
“I noticed a few minutes before how windy it was getting,” Librarian Lauren Valdes said.
“We had to get flashlights and go into the book stacks to see if people were in there because there is no light in there at all. So it was a matter of leading people out of the book stacks.”
A similar sight of deserted computers in the library was also seen in The Learning Center.
When the blackout caused the computers to turn off, some students left and some stayed.
Pierce student Natalie Abrahamian was one of those who stayed behind.
She recalled how she was just about to work on her Chemistry 101 lab on the computer when the outage occurred.
“I had my floppy disk with me. I put it in and my lab was on the screen. Everything was on my disk, but I lost the chance to print it out,” she said.
Abrahamian added, “Hopefully we won’t have lab.”
According to Ken Govers, instructional assistant in The Learning Center, because of the blackout, the computers will not save anything that students were working on when the power comes back on.
Govers suggests that students should constantly save any work they are working on in case of another power outage.
The Tutoring Center, adjacent to the Learning Center, however, still had many students who stayed behind, studying by the light of their cell phones wasting no time catching up on their studies.
Marco Hernandez, Pierce student as well as microbiology tutor in the Tutoring Center, was there studying for his anatomy class.
Despite the fact that there were no lights in the room, Hernandez lingered for a while with other students continuing his studies.
“We don’t really have to write, we just need to look at bones and muscles,” he said.
Andy Bhusiririt, student worker at The Freudian Sip, arrived just after the blackout occurred.
“I found the place closed; my employee let me in,” he said. “I thought the power was going to go back on. Now it’s just closed.”
The Freudian Sip reopened at about 4 p.m., according to Bhusiririt.
In the Administration Building, emergency backup lights, set up to turn on in case of power outages, shone faintly in the early afternoon sunlight.
Those in the lobby where the information desk is located would probably have not noticed an outage had occurred at all.
Additional reporting by Kristopher Prue-Cook
Plant Facilities Director Paul Nieman assesses the mall as parts of campus suffered a loss of power amidst a massive windstorm Thursday. ()
Nick Costadinidis (left), 20, and Zenneta Taylor (top right), 18, watch their friend Sabrina Emerson (bottom right), 18, covers up to protect her face from debris that high-speed winds kicked up Thursday. ()