3

DECEMBER 3, 2003

Darkness Strikes Again!

“This university sucks. There should
| Shave been emergency power to res. |
_ really wanted to sleep.”

A transformer outside the UNBC residence.

Above: Photo by Marlon Francescini

Left: Photo by Becky Booth.

UNBC student Trevor was thrown out of his home in Keyoh when the power weni
out last week.

Continuing Electrical Problems Plague UNBC

By Dana Schwehr

One cold winter night last week,
UNBC residence students were
forced from their homes by a dev-
astating loss of power. Power to
Keyoh was completely knocked
out, and Neyoh was operating at
half power. UNBC students were
deprived of electricity for about
five hours, and students who live
in Keyoh were unable to return to
their homes until approximately
2:30 am.

At approximately 9:15 pm,
Friday, November 21, 2003, power
to most of UNBC residence, as well
as to parts of the university itself,
was disrupted. UNBC Facilities
staff immediately began to search
for the power disruption, but they
were unable to find the source of
the problem. BC Hydro was called
to the scene to determine off-cam-
pus causes of the problem, but at
the time, BC Hydro had no indica-
tion that there were any problems
in the lines to UNBC. It turns out
that the piece of equipment that is
designed to report equipment fail-
ure to BC Hydro was not operating
properly. Thus, no error in equip-
ment operation was reported to BC
Hydro, which was one of the many
factors that resulted in the five-

hour delay in the restoration of
UNBC’s electricity flow. BC hydro
could only spare one truck to come
to UNBC to locate and repair the
problem, as someone had chosen
that night to drive a truck into a
power pole out on River Road.
Repair time was slowed drastically
until an extra crew was available
to aid repair efforts.

The likelihood of a fire
breaking. out during a
power outage is very
high, since large num-
bers of people burn can-
dies during power out-
ages. Combine burning
candies with the usual
Friday-night — drinking
that occurs in
Residence, and _ fire
becomes a_ serious
threat.

When the BC Hydro crews
arrived on campus, it was discov-
ered that the power to the entire
university had to be shut down, in

order to reset the system. Once the
repair work on campus was com-

pleted, the system was restarted.
The electricity seemed to have
returned to campus, if not in the
quantities that students were used
to. Unfortunately, because a large
part of the ‘problem was off cam-
pus, the system shut itself down
again, leaving students in the dark
until the problem was found.

In the meantime, Resident
Assistants were having troubles of
their own. While there is no official
policy that defines the procedures

to be followed during a power cri--

sis, it had been decided since the

- power outage on November 10

that it would be best to evacuate
residents from.the buildings. There
are two main reasons for this tem-

porary policy. The likelihood of a

fire breaking out during a power
outage is very high, since large
numbers of people burn candles
during power outages. Combine
burning candles with the usual
Friday-night drinking that occurs
in Residence, and fire becomes a
serious threat. Another problem
with leaving students in darkened
residence buildings lies with the
backup lighting system used by
the residences. While UNBC was
originally designed to have cogen-
eration abilities, this was scrapped

early on, due to funding issues.
The two generators that were built
before the cogeneration idea was
scrapped became the backup
power. system of the University,
but they can only supply about
40% of the UNBC’s power needs.
Residence is not even hooked up

The power situation at
UNBC this year is not
normal for the school. “It
never happens usually,
but this year it seems to
happen a lot’, said one
harried Resident
Assistant.

to these generators, and all emer-
gency lighting in the residences is
battery powered. These batteries
power the emergency lights only
for forty-five minutes, approxi-
mately. This makes finding any
injured students and removing
them from the buildings extremely
difficult, and it is safer for every-
one involved if the buildings are
evacuated.

Evacuating two buildings full of
students is not an easy task, how-
ever. Many students in Keyoh had

gone to bed at the onset of the
power outage, and were not easy
to rouse, or even to find, for that
matter. Some of the sleeping stu-
dents were overlooked entirely in
the course of events. Larger num-
bers of the students in Neyoh did
not want to leave their homes,
since they still had some power.
Neyoh students were allowed to
return home later in the evening
because the building had some
power, and they were not forced to
leave a second time when the
whole system was shut down.
The power situation at UNBC
this year is not normal for the
school. “It never happens usually, -
but this year it seems to happen a
lot”, said one harried Resident
Assistant. At this time it is difficult
to say why electrical troubles have
plagued UNBC, but work is being
done to prevent such troubles in
the future. The purchase of more
generators is being discussed, as is
the possibility of expanding the
university's power plant to allow
cogeneration of electricity.