SMS
RSS feeds
Reddit
Newsvine
Enlarge
When a tree limb broke and fell across wires feeding Slavianskii Dom’s (Slav Dom) house supply panel on Nov. 13, the resulting power outage affected the house operations of both Slav Dom and the neighboring Row house 717 Dolores (717).
Around noon, the broken tree limb pulled down the “electrical overhead supply drop,” which in turn pulled the wires from Slav Dom’s house electricity supply panel, according to Assistant Director of Student Housing for Maintenance Phil Resch. As a result, both the panel and related wiring were damaged.
A 717 resident immediately reported the power outage to Student Housing, and Housing staff members were on hand within 10 minutes. However, power was not restored to Slav Dom for another five hours, at which point Housing staff utilized a mobile generator reserved for the President’s house.
“PG&E [Pacific Gas and Electric Company] was called immediately when Student Housing was notified that there was a loss of power,” Resch said. “717 Dolores was also affected. PG&E was able to repair 717 very quickly, but additional work needed to be done at the Slav Dom electrical panel before power could be turned back on.”
Due to the loss of power, Slav Dom’s daily house operations were affected on both Nov. 13 and Nov. 14.
“Since the power was out on Tuesday, and then the workers turned off the generator during the day on Wednesday to work on the wires, our cook was not able to prepare meals,” said Vaughan Tuohy ‘08, Slav Dom’s kitchen manager. “As a result we had to order out for two days. All in all it worked out fine, but the only concern is if we will be compensated for the meals we had to order in.”
Though Stanford has several mobile campus generators in addition to the one reserved for the President’s house, Associate Director of Student Housing for Operations Imogen Hinds said that the University would implement its emergency plan in the event of a more extensive power outage.
“We have other campus mobile generators that could have been used if that one [reserved for the President’s house] was not available,” she said. “If a severe and extensive power outage were to occur we would more than likely look to using other facilities to help support the food and housing needs. We would use the University Emergency plan protocol.”
Executive Director of Student Housing and Chief Housing Officer Rodger Whitney emphasized that Housing acts on emergency situations as quickly as possible.
“We react as soon as we are aware of the issue, and work to manage the situation to the best that can be done under the circumstances,” he said.
Though both PG&E and the Cardinal CoGen facility have alarms in place to report if service is interrupted, Resch said that residents and Housing staff usually report a problem if they are in the building.
Overall, Tuohy was satisfied with the way Housing handled the power outage at Slav Dom.
“I think [Student Housing] dealt with it pretty well, though I would have preferred if PG&E did not turn off power during the day on Wednesday,” he said. “Generally these things are slower than you want it to be, but [Housing] was good about it and told us what was going on each step of the process.”