By MATT DEMIRS
EDITOR IN CHIEF
Power has been restored across campus after nearly three weeks of electrical issues caused by multiple failures in the underground power lines during March.
On March 13th, during Spring Break, Phillip Hood, the Vice President of Development and Alumni Relations, alerted the student body via email of a major power outage that was originally said to take hours to repair.
Hood’s email was the first in a series of announcements that provided students information about the complications that affected power in academic buildings, residence halls, and the Mohr Student Center on Middle campus.
Cafeteria configuration and menus were modified as a result of the power loss over Spring Break, leaving students with fewer options than normal, according to Lily McCarthy ‘18.
Five days later, an email from Stacey Oliver, Senior Associate Director of Residence Life for Community Standards & Operations, gave students an explanation of the existing issues and the steps being done to rectify the situation.
“The College will need to replace the underground electric cables on north campus and possibly middle campus later this week. As a result of this process, we anticipate the need to schedule power shutdowns in order to accommodate the transfer of electricity from generators to the repaired power lines,” Oliver said in a Student Announcement. “These planned power shutdowns will be scheduled with advance notice provided to the campus community.”
Students living in Cleveland-Young International Center, Harlan, Blackstone, and Lois Hall were asked to discard perishable foods left in their refrigerator over break due to health risks associated with temperature control as a result of the outage, Oliver said in the same email.
The buildings without permanent power, such as Young Hall, the Donnelley and Lee Library, and the Mohr Student Center were run on diesel generators, according to David Siebert, Director of Facilities Management.
On March 25th, the contractors successfully restored normal power to Lois Hall, Cleveland Young, Patterson Lodge, North Hall, Young Hall, Reid Hall, Facilities Management, Johnson Science Center B & D, Carnegie Hall, Ravine Lodge, Art Garage, and VisComm, according to Oliver.
Since March 31th, when the power was restored campus-wide, the generators have been removed from their locations.
Siebert said in an email interview that the power outages were caused by “a large electrical ‘feeder’ [that] failed due to a tree growing into it.”
He said the cost of the fix was close to $200,000, which was covered through an insurance claim.
The electrical contractor for the Science building construction, Kelso Burnett, who is based in Rolling Meadows, was responsible for completing the work, Siebert said.
Siebert said the power outages were an unusual circumstance and “an act of God” by the insurance company.
Matt Demirs can be reached at demirmsl@mx.lakeforest.edu
