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East Lake Building C, located four blocks from the Winona State University main campus, recently had a major power outage.
Elly Herrick, a second-year student who lives in East Lake Building C and also works for The Winonan as a reporter and Online Editor, speaks about their experience.
“Over the weekend [Jan. 27-28] the power shut off on Saturday during between the hours of eight to ten PM,” Herrick explained.
Herrick detailed that first the lights turned off, then the Wi-Fi turned off as well. The next morning [Sunday] the lights and Wi-Fi would periodically turn off and on as well.
Sarah Olcott, the Director of Housing, explains what specifically happened to cause the power outage.
“On the outside of the building, there are main breaker boxes. The sealant on the main breaker box failed because of how old it is. Moisture got into that box, and that cut power to the whole building,” Olcott explained.
Olcott continued, saying that the first night of the power outage they had identified the problem, dried the whole box out, and got the power to work again. But when it happened again on Sunday, they tried to fix the problem with the same solution and it did not work.
Eventually, the electricians replaced the sealant on the breaker box and added a preventative covering on the box
Herrick stated that during that period, students were not able to do their homework so many went to Main Campus to study.
“Because of what happened, Ann Durley (The East Lake Hall Director) communicated with us via email about what was going on and gave us two free meals in the dining hall. I thought that was really great because I think a lot of people were having issues with their fridges,” Herrick said.
Olcott expressed that aside from the emails, RA’s (Resident Assistants) would go door-to-door to explain the situation to the residents of the apartment building. With Wi-Fi not available to students, they still wanted to the information to get out to students.
Herrick stated that her biggest worry regarding the power outage was security. Normally on campus, you need a specific card to electronically get you into the buildings, but their worry was that anyone could get into the building because of the lack of power.
Olcott explained that this has not happened before at Winona State, and that the team involved is working to fix the problem efficiently for the future.
