Saga Inc. staff, student employees, and some determined maintenance workers managed to coninue the normal meal schedule for 24 hours — without power.
A main transformer that supplies energy to most of the appliances in the Knorr Dining Rom broke down at about 4:30 p.m. on Feb. 6, causing the cafeteria to lose about 90 percent of its ability to produce hot food.
“It was really awkward and hectic at first, because we thought the power would come back on because it has shut off and come back before,” student worker and freshman William Persson said. “It didn’t.”
Operations Manager Marty Morrison was sitting at his desk reading emails when he heard the machines shut down.
“It sounded like someone took a hammer to the machines. You could hear them shut down,” Morrison said. “I got on the radio and notified [General Manager] Kevin [Kirwan] that we didn’t have any power, then checked with the staff to see exactly what equipment we had lost.”
It was the first time that a transformer has shut down since the Grewcock Student Union opened in 2008.
“Instead of one unit being down, everything’s down,” Kirwan said. “Fortunately, we had lights, an exhaust system, and all the smoke detectors, because they’re on a different circuit. Otherwise, we would have had no choice but to move over to Curtiss.”
With only 30 minutes before the dinner rush arrived, Morrison and Kirwan assessed how many electric outlets were working and created ways to cope with the power problems so that Saga could still offer hot pork loin.
“It came down to analyzing your assets and capitalizing on what you have to work with,” Morrison said. “We thought that the menu would have to get adjusted, but we didn’t have to do that.”
Saga workers placed non-toxic canned fuel at the base of food warmers to keep meals hot and strung a series of extension cords to keep the drink machines and the student identification number check-in open. Someone made coffee in Curtiss Dining Hall, then transported it back to the main cafeteria.
In fact, by the next day at lunchtime, the extension cords had recovered 40 percent of Saga’s usual power output.
“There was no cold food or major meal changes throughout the incident,” Kirwan said. “I think it’s interesting that some people saw that A.J.’s was closed on Thursday and then assumed we weren’t serving hot food either. But no, we improvised, and we were open for business.”
The workers were able to serve nearly everything that they normally would have but used different techniques. For example, the woks were fired up for sautéing since the steamers were out of commission. Some students placed a half sheet pan with cooking oil on the chargrill to serve up grilled cheese sandwiches.
“The kids were great. I mean, our student workers are just fantastic and very helpful,” Kirwan said, “If nothing else, the whole experience opened their eyes to other cooking methods. It’s like we were going camping or something.”
Prior to lunch on Friday, Morrison and Kirwan evaluated the available appliances and power before deciding to serve smoked fish.
“We actually had a lot of people enjoy it, and we’re going to offer it more often,” Morrison said. “We were just trying an alternate cooking method, but it brought forth something new and different.”
Meanwhile, maintenance workers shoveled their way through the snow to get to where they needed to work on the broken transformer.
“Those guys are just supermen,” Kirwan said.
Maintenance began working around 7 a.m. on Feb. 7 and finished installing a new transformer around 3 p.m. Since then, Saga has been operating under normal power conditions.
“Necessity is the mother of all inventions — and so we invented,” Kirwin said.