The River Campus power plant during a recent storm.
South Campus experienced a short power failure from 8 – 10:00 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 11, due to an equipment malfunction at a Rochester Gas and Electric substation near the UR’s River Campus. This caused an interruption of electrical services for residents living in Southside Living Center and also for students living in the University Park apartment complex.
The Rochester Fire Department, Security, Campus Emergency and on call personnel from Residential Life all worked together to address the power failure situation. The RAs in Southside checked the buildings to ensure that the residents were safe, and they also kept the entrance doors open because card access was not working.
Residential Life and Housing Director Laurel Contomanolis’s advice for students who experience themselves in a blackout situation in the future is to be prepared.
“It would be helpful if students had a flashlight in their rooms for these kind of situations,” Contomanolis said. “There are absolutely no circumstances where students should burn candles.”
These types of power outages have occurred previously, but this was a relatively short outage that was fixed within a few hours. According to Contomanolis, Residential Life works in collaboration with security and facilities to control these types of situation, with their ultimate goal being to keep students safe during any type of power failure.
