Karina Gonzalez
You never think about how important electricity is until it’s not there. Several minutes after 8 a.m. Sept. 26, students, faculty and staff thought about electricity on campus… there wasn’t any.
Pierce College President Robert Garber said that it was a Department of Water and Power (DWP) problem. DWP could not be reached for comment but according to Paul Nieman, director of Plant Facilities, DWP informed him that a volt unit on Ventura Boulevard was sited as smoking and burned.
As soon as the power went out, Plant Facilities made sure refrigerators in life science, nursing, the Health Center and the Cafeteria were backed up with portable generators.
In addition, the co-generating plant, located next to the North Gym, powered the Sheriff’s Station during the outage.
The outage resulted in a variety of different problems across campus. However, many student services were down campus wide, including basics such as automated doors utilized by students with limited mobility. These doors are heavy and take great force to push them open.
Administration
Nieman said a portable generator in the Administration Building kept the Multiple Distribution Frame (MDF) on.
He said the MDF is the point of entry for the phone lines, the website and the outside world.
Admissions and Records
In Admissions and Records the entry hallway was dark with the only light entering the room came through the windows.
“We cannot work so we cannot do anything right now,” said Vivan Meshreky, an Admissions and Records assistant.
Book Store
The Bookstore was closed and a handwritten sign informed students of the situation.
Freudian Sip Café
Due to the power outage the Sip was only able to sell coffee and pastries.
Cashiers had no other choice but to keep record of all they sold with pencils and paper and after every transaction they had to manually open the register drawer to put the money away.
“It’s frustrating,” said Sip employee Annette Gutierrez.
Financial Aid
Joy McCaslin, vice president of Student Services, stopped by to let Financial Aid Supervisor Blanca Oviedo know of the situation.
McCaslin said, “In the meantime, we are doing what we can at our desk and hope it [electricity] comes on soon.” Assistants resorted to filing and cleaning out their desks to keep busy using limited light.
Business Building
Echoed with the voices of professors who continued to lecture despite the lack of power. Lit with low light, coming from emergency lights, the dark corridor of the Business Building housed several lost students. In one of the computer labs, students tried to fulfill their lab requirements, while facing black computer screens.
When they were told that the wait would be an hour or so, Nancy Litwack, a student, laughed. “It makes me sad because I can’t do my work,” she said. “It’s a little Frustrating.”
“It’s a little frustrating, we’ve missed a day’s class,” said Carolyn Crane, adjunct instructor of Computer Applications and Office Technologies. She said because the class meets twice a week they would be able to catch up in time.
When the power goes out “it’s tough in the computer classes,” said Jill Binsley, computer applications professor. “We’re really in trouble when we don’t have power.”
She said it’s up to teachers to come up with alternatives and that if she knew ahead of time she would have handout ready, but explained that that only goes so far.
“When there is a black out, you have to be creative and flexible,” she said. “It’s frustrating.”
“Why does it have to happen today,” said Chanita Voonyuennan, a student who had to complete an assignment. After attempting to use the pitch-black women’s restroom, Voonyueman’s classmate Jennifer Decaussin said, “They should have emergency lights in the bathrooms.”
Cafeteria
Cafeteria employees carrying boxes clenched flashlights in their mouths in order to see their way through the blackness of the kitchen.
Day supervisor of the Cafeteria, JoAnn Bensen, said they were able to continue working as long as they kept the cash register drawers open.
“We know how to give change,” she said. They, too, resorted to paper and pencil.
Bensen said all electric machines were down and that if the power outage continued for more than four hours, the cafeteria would have to close. She also added that there seemed to have been a rise in customers who would normally have used the Freudian Sip Café.
Blood drive
In the Campus Center the Red Cross had set tables and equipment for a blood drive. According to their representative, who was not allowed to go on record due to a confidentially agreement, the Red Cross was unable to get started. He said they needed power for the four machines, which extract the blood donations, for the computers to input the data, the air conditioning to keep body temperatures down and the machine that vacuumed sealed the donations.
He also said the Red Cross averages seven units of blood an hour at Pierce, but if the power was to be out until 11 a.m. he said it would be a total of 21 units of blood not received. This translates into 21 people not receiving a blood transfusion, he said.
Health Center
The blood drive and the health center had similar concerns.
Health Center Assistant Loralyn Fredrick said that if the power was not up by 11 a.m., she would have to cancel the 16 appointments scheduled for that day. Fredrick said that as soon as the power went out, she followed procedure and called Plant Facilities for a portable generator.
The generator powered a refrigerator which contains vaccines such as polio, Hepatitis A and B and TB.
“DWP had a problem with a router and they had to make an alternative route to get us power which was restored between 9:30 and 10 a.m.,” said Nieman.
To avoid injury to students and staff, Plant Facilities did not fully restore power until all was clear.
“That’s a lot of juice and we want to be safe,” said Nieman.
However, The Village had power before the rest of the campus
Nieman said it was because the Village is on a different transformer, which powered up before the rest of the campus.
“That will be changed soon- the Village will no longer be on it’s own,” Nieman said. He did not explain why.
Student Anisa Baloch waited in the Learning Center for the power to comeback in order to print out her assignment. ()