University of Mississippi residential buildings experience twelve hour power outage
The University of Mississippi experienced a power outage on March 24, 2019, from 6:30 a.m to around 5:45 p.m. The outage was a result of maintenance being done as part of the East Campus Electrical Modifications Project to repair a faulty grounded circuit. During the time of the maintenance, sixteen residential buildings, as well as all fraternity and sorority houses, were left without power.
A public service announcement was sent via e-mail by The University of Mississippi Department of Student Housing on March 22, 2019, two days before the power outage was planned, which listed nine residential buildings as well as all greek buildings that were expected to be impacted by the maintenance. Three hours later a follow-up statement was released that included the names of seven more buildings expected to be impacted.
The statement also said that the East Campus Electrical Modifications Project is an upgrade of the electrical workings of the campus that has been ongoing for the past year. A faulty ground circuit became energized on March 15 and was repaired but it was still returning questionable readings a few days later on March 18. If the faulty grounded circuit were to fail it would cause a power outage that could last up to several days to repair.
The statements also cautioned students that live on campus to check the food in their refrigerator once the power was restored.
When reached for comment Rod Guajardo Associate Director of Strategic Communications for the university said that the statement sent from The Department of Student Housing would remain the university’s statement.
Senior Jackie Kruljiac, a resident of Residence Hall 2 on campus said before the power outage that she planned to take her perishable items in her refrigerator and store them off campus.
“I was going to take things like my milk to my boyfriend’s house. I’ll probably bring them over Saturday night and pick them up Monday just so that they don’t go bad. That was something I realized, and I was like “Ew,” I don’t want this to go bad,” Kruljiac said.
Anna Hite, a junior and resident of Residence Hall 2 on campus said she ate or threw away any food that she thought would spoil before power outage.
“I threw out half a tub of ice cream. Not a big loss,” Hite said.
Several students shared the sentiment that the university should have tried to perform maintenance on the grounded circuit during spring break when fewer students would have been impacted by losing power for an extended amount of time.
“I think it is one hundred percent idiotic to not do it over spring break. Especially since spring break was a week before. It did not inconvenience me as I was expecting though,” William Mitchell, a sophomore resident of the Sigma Chi fraternity house said after the power outage.
Spring break for the university ended on March 17, two days after the circuit was damaged. There was a two day time table between when the circuit was damaged and when spring break ended for students. Initial repairs on the circuit did not begin until March 18, one day after spring break ended.
Anna Hite said after the power outage that she also thought that spring break would have been a better time for the university to perform large scale maintenance, but since more buildings were closed during the break, it would have caused more trouble for students who decided to stay on campus.
“Spring break might have been a better time since many students would be gone. However, since some buildings were closed or on restricted hours, there would have likely been less places for the people still on campus to go. Personally, I’d have preferred it over spring break,” Hite said.
