At approximately 8:05 p.m. this evening there was a campus wide power outage due to heavy rainfall and indiscriminate weather. The lights turned on and off three times before going out for an extended period of time. Many students decided to leave their rooms and gather in the hallways, which remained lit. In an attempt to find out more about the status of the situation, Student Government Association President Syene Jasmine made a call from Village One to University Police at 8:19 p.m. The conversation lasted 47 seconds. The information from that call was inconclusive. Apparently a few buildings still have electricity, including Pride Hall and The Suites. In another call back to University Police Department on behalf of The A&T Register, the tele-communicator Margo Hairston informed us that UPD was notified of the situation by Duke Energy because the problem may be their responsibility. “They are working to restore the power but there is no set time when it will happen,” said Hairston. She also stated that the student procedure at this time is for the “Resident Assistants to stand by the students until the Residence Hall Officers arrived”. Both University Police Supervisors Lieutenant Whitaker and Sergeant Scott were unavailable for comment due to the large flow of phone calls from students and parents. Raymond Beaman, a residence assistant in Barbee Hall, explained “During R.A. training blackouts are not discussed … [right now] we are just sitting around.” Bennett College and UNCG are institutions in close proximity to A&T. However, after confirming with students from each university, both schools have experienced no power outages. Freshman Tatiana Smith, Elementary Education major at UNCG, said “the lights have been on the entire time with no flickers or anything, and of course it has been raining.” Shanay Brown, Journalism major at Bennett College, said she believes “we are on two different power surges, which is why their power has not been affected either.” Several students confirmed that they have received no texts relaying information about the outage from The Aggie Alert System. This system is in place to immediately update students when situations like this occur. Many students are outraged at the way the situation is being handled. “I am upset that we have been sitting here for two and a half hours with no power and on top of that we are receiving no text messages to update us. This is ridiculous,” explained Vanessa Small, a junior Social Work major. At approximately 10:25 p.m. power was restored to A&T’s campus.
- Alessandra Brown & LaRia Land
