Power outages affect multiple university buildings
Quinn Ferraro spent almost an hour stuck in an E.S. Bird Library elevator Monday when a power outage hit multiple buildings on campus.
Ferraro entered the library just before 5 p.m. and was planning to meet a friend on the fourth floor. But as soon as the elevator doors shut, all of the lights went off and power went out in the library, said Ferraro, an undeclared freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Two outages affected a total of 418 National Grid customers, making the power go out in Bird, the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, Huntington Hall, Marshall Square Mall, Schine Student Center and part of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.
The initial outage started at 4:57 p.m., but all campus buildings regained power by 6:37 p.m. Workers from National Grid were on the corner of Walnut and Waverly avenues, behind the library, checking the lines and trying to switch the power back on, said Rick Paussa, a line mechanic for the company. The exact cause of the power outage had not been determined at the time, he said.
SU’s University College canceled classes for the evening due to the outage, said Sara Miller, associate director of SU News Services, in an e-mail.
During the outage, Joshua Podrid was waiting for Ferraro on the fourth floor of the library when he found out she was stuck in an elevator.
‘I got a text from her. She was like, ‘Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, I’m stuck,” said Podrid, an undeclared freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences. ‘I knew she was in the elevator because she was coming up to work with me.’
Physical Plant officials arrived at about 5:20 p.m., said facilities maintenance worker Mark Monette. Ferraro was rescued from the elevator at 5:50 p.m. and embraced Podrid with a hug.
Library officials closed the third and fourth floors while the power was out, said Tom House, library facilities and security coordinator. Students were allowed to work in the basement, first and second floors.
Waiting to meet a friend outside of Whitman after his class got canceled, Paul Agrapidis, an undeclared freshman in Whitman, let people into the building while the power was out because the doors were locked.
Jordan Clifford, a junior magazine journalism major, was in a photography class in Newhouse I when the power went out.
‘We were discussing Hitchcock in class, and our professor said something about how it offers suspense and something else, and then bam! The lights went off,’ she said.
Clifford’s professor canceled class after about five minutes because the class was nearing completion, she said. Clifford left Newhouse after the cancelation and went next door to Schine hoping to print something, she said. Once she realized Schine and Bird had no power, she was out of luck, she said.
Members of DanceWorks were planning to practice in Schine at 5:15 p.m. but were not allowed in Goldstein Auditorium, said Katie Story, co-director of DanceWorks and a senior magazine journalism major.
Members were asked to stay in the atrium of Schine, where there was natural light, she said. More than 100 members had planned to attend the practice, she said.
Rachel Hacohen, a sophomore English and textual studies major, was working in a computer lab in Newhouse I and said there was panic and chaos when the power went out.
‘We thought it was just Newhouse, but how could this happen?’ she said. ‘Imagine if it was finals week.’
— Asst. News Editor Michael Boren and Asst. Copy Editor Laurence Leveille contributed reporting to this article.
Published on February 27, 2011 at 12:00 pm
