As the remnants of Hurricane Sandy swept through the Midwest early this week, a combination of high winds and freezing rain resulted in a loss of power for Hillsdale College’s campus.
“The power outage was a direct result of the winds. We believe that a couple of lines got galloping in the wind and touched, which set off a transformer,” said Rick Rose, director of the Hillsdale Board of Public Utilities.
“We still need to get out and do some work on the lines, just to get some distance between them,” he said.
Vice President of Administration Rich Péwé began the process of notifying key administration members once the power died.
“We don’t take chances on notifying people when the power goes down,” Péwé said. “We have people on call to reset things. The response was great. We have great people.”
After the notification process, Péwé takes steps to ensure the safety of students living on campus.
“We’re always concerned about student safety. We want to reassure people,” Péwé said. “The number of security checks are increased. We have an intensified communication process. We take every precaution.”
Péwé also had high praise for the workers from the Board of Public Utilities.
“Their response was so prompt and so fast. I don’t know how they do it with the weather,” he said.
On campus, dorm directors and resident assistants sprang into action as the lights flickered off.
“When the power went out, I wanted to make sure that the doors were open,” said senior Michael Di Pietro, a resident assistant in The Suites. “The house director and I met up, and we made a plan to cope with the power outage. We just kind of adapted to what we had.”
As darkness enveloped the campus, screams echoed through the hallways as shocked students reacted to the loss of power.
“People kind of got excited,” Di Pietro said. “People were screaming, and there were little pranks. It was all in good fun.”
On the other side of campus, in Simpson Hall, students took the pranks a little farther.
“When the power went out, I was doing work. I didn’t really care. There were some people saying ‘we’re all going to die’ and stuff like that,” sophomore Wes Wright said. “Then someone said, ‘Hey, let’s raid north side.’ Within minutes, my entire hall was weaponized. We had Axe bombs, nerf guns, the usual. We went through all three floors, and then the power came back on.”
The power went out once more around midnight on Tuesday morning, but was soon restored.
“We don’t expect any more problems from this storm,” Rose said.
