Power Goes Off in Gothics

If your alarm clock did not work this morning, it might have been because of the West Campus Residential Initiative. This morning, students on West Campus experienced a power shutdown due to construction on the loading docks for the Hans Bethe House, a new residential building scheduled to open by January.

The loading dock is needed to transport supplies, such as furniture or food, into the Bethe House and its dining facility. In order to excavate the area, the electrical circuits located beside the Class of ’26 building had to be taken out of the way. These electrical circuits power all of West Campus, other than the Carl Becker House, Alice Cook House, and Noyes Community Center, which run on another generator.

Jonathan Hui ’09, a resident of McFaddin Hall, had to cope with the power shutdown. “I’ll make sure I stay asleep the entire night, and I’ll keep a flashlight handy,” Hui said the night before. When asked about how he felt about not having power for a night, he said, “I don’t think it’s an extreme inconvenience because it’s on weekday night hours, but I still think it’ll cause problems since we can’t study without lights, and some people have plug in alarm clocks.”

Michael J. MacAnanny, West Campus Residential Initiative project leader, said the power shutdown will be a reoccurring thing, but it will not likely happen while classes are in session. “There will be other times, but we will try to schedule it for the breaks,” he said. This morning’s power shutdown occurred because the excavation of the loading docks could not be done before the start of the semester.

West Campus’s residents were told about the power shutdown in advance via email by their residence hall directors. The RHDs clarified that despite the power shutdown; there will be an emergency power generator on. “Each emergency generator powers the fire alarm system and the exiting lights, but do not power enough lights to read [under],” MacAnanny said.

If any of the residents wanted to study, they had the Becker and Cook House common and dining rooms available, as well as the computer lab in Noyes Community Center.