By Jen Cardone | The Duquesne Duke
A scheduled power outage this Saturday will not affect campus dorms.
The outage, scheduled from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., will give the facilities management department the opportunity to fix several campus electrical infrastructure issues.
Several buildings will not have power, including Old Main, Canevin Hall, Gumberg Library, the Laval House, the Rangos School of Health Sciences, Rockwell Hall, the School of Law, Trinity Hall and the Forbes and Locust parking garages, according to facilities management.
Rodney Dobish, executive director of facilities management, said the outage is not related to the power outage last semester.
Earlier this year, over 1,000 students were displaced because of a faulty line beneath Academic Walk in February. Forty-seven percent of the affected students fortunately lived close enough to go home during the outage.
“We don’t want another event like that again,” Dobish said. “We want to do the repairs so we do not have an interruption.”
The purpose of the power outage will be for crews to do some preventative maintenance, to prevent an unexpected outage, according to Dobish.
“There are some repairs we need to do and to do it safely, we need to have the power out,” Dobish said.
Dobish said this is good timing for an outage because most people will not be on campus due to Thanksgiving break.
But not everyone is going home for the Thanksgiving holiday. Some people will still be on campus. Residents of both Trinity Hall and the Laval House will remain on campus without power for 12 hours.
The Rev. Bill Christy, a resident of the Laval House, said there was a meeting on Oct. 31 where facilities management met with the workers and residents of the affected buildings.
“Hopefully the power will only be for 12 hours,” Christy said. “We have been asked to unplug our fridges and make sure our computers are powered down.”
If every fridge turns on at once when they repower the buildings, it could overload the electricity, he said.
As of now, Dobish said he believes one day will be enough time for the maintenance.
“There’s always a chance they won’t get the power back on,” Christy said. “But they’ll be constantly working on it. Facilities management said it is okay to stay because we will have steamed heat from the boiler plant, which is separate from the electricity.”
There is still a chance the outage will not occur, but the department has been preparing.
“We have had several planning meetings, it just depends on the weather,” Dobish said.
If any inclement weather should occur, the power outage will be postponed and the campus community will be alerted by Thursday or Friday afternoon.
Attendants will be stationed at the gates to the Forbes and Locust garages so parking will not be disrupted.
Jason Conlogue, assistant manager of parking and traffic management, said signs will be posted in the garage to tell commuters about the power outage and that they should use the Power Center elevators to get up to campus.
Gumberg Library will be closed Saturday and Sunday, and will not reopen until Monday. Students are encouraged to use the online database for resources and to check out any books or items they will need during this time before 5 p.m. on Friday.
