Photo by Melissa Marchese.
Update: As of 8:46 p.m., Adams said that National Grid is now working through the night to try and restore power, and will be working until it is restored to campus. Also, earlier it was reported that the lines were damaged in six or seven different spots; new clarified information from Adams said that all of the lines were damaged in one spot, Great Swamp, but there were six or seven lines damaged.
Several buildings on the University of Rhode Island’s Kingston Campus lost power and saw other problems last night and into this morning following a storm that brought heavy rains, high winds and led to the cancellation of classes.
Samuel Adams, the assistant director of Emergency Management and Public Safety, said that unless power is restored by sunset tonight it will not be coming back on until tomorrow morning at the earliest. The power lines going to campus were down in about six or seven spots, according to Adams.
National Grid had three crews working on restoring power as of this afternoon.
“They can’t work out there after dark,” said Adams. It’s not safe. So if the power is not back on by the time the sun goes down, we know we’re [going to] be without it until the morning.”
Students have reported hearing that the power will not be restored until 11 p.m. on Saturday, but these were unconfirmed at the time of the original publication. Adams said via email that “National Grid hasn’t committed to any specific timeline.”
As of 2:15 p.m. this afternoon, there were still many buildings on campus without power, including 11 residential buildings–10 residence halls and the Texas Instruments house– as well as various academic, administrative and other buildings, according to Adams.
Six of those residence halls are those in the Roger Williams Complex, which is comprised of Aldrich, Burnside, Coddington, Dorr, Ellery and Hopkins halls.
Butterfield Dining Hall is open and has power, as is Hope Dining Commons after a brief closure due to problems with a generator. The Memorial Union is open with power and internet as well. The Health Services building is open with full power and are offering refrigeration for medications. Health Services will close for the day at 8 p.m., which follows their usual schedule.
The power outages aren’t the only problems caused to facilities by the storm.
Coddington Hall saw flooding in its basement last night. This has since been rectified.
“I’m not sure what caused it, [but it was] most likely the runoff from the rain,” said Adams.
In Burnside Hall, police logs show that the fire alarm went off at 1:52 a.m., causing residents to have to evacuate and wait outside in the rain. Residents were allowed back into the building at 2:12 a.m. According to residents, the alarm then went off again at around 3 a.m.
The first alarm, according to Adams and firefighters on the scene, was caused by a steam pipe that burst. The fire alarm panel in that building was also damaged when the power went out but had been repaired as of this afternoon.
Both Major Michael Jagoda of the URI Police Department and Adams spoke about “fire watches,” in which people walk around buildings and have ways to contact dispatch in case of a fire if the alarm system is down.
According to Adams, the alarm systems are designed to last for 60 hours on battery power once the electricity goes off. Even though the batteries are replaced regularly in accordance with fire codes, he said that the 60-hour battery life is rarely seen. Once the 30-hour mark is hit fire watches are instituted. If the power is not restored by tonight, fire watches will be activated in the residential buildings that were affected.
Last night, Burnside Hall was under a fire watch due to the damaged alarm panel.
“We will continue our fire watch working along with Housing and Residential Life, [but] once we get power up and running everything should be restored,” said Jagoda.
In parking lots, there were reports of tree branches and limbs falling during the storm as well. According to Jagoda, as of early this afternoon, there had been no reports of this causing damage to any vehicles.
Out of all the problems caused by the storm, “the primary concern was the power outage,” said Adams. Concerns associated with the outages included making sure that all of the fire alarms and the on-campus emergency phone line remained functional.
The emergency phone line went down last night, but as of 2:57 this afternoon it was back up, according to an email sent out by URI Communications on behalf of the Office of Emergency Management.
Facilities Operations and the Department of External Relations and Communications have not yet returned requests for comment, nor has National Grid, the company that supplies power to the area. Housing and Residential Life referred requests for comment to the Department of External Relations and Communications.
If you have an emergency on-campus, dial 401-874-2121. If you have an emergency off-campus, dial 911. This is a developing story, check back for updates.