Lafayette College’s campus lost power in a set of Halloween weekend outages last Friday, leaving much of campus dark for seven hours and several residence halls without power for over a day. The outages occured after two electrical poles in the College Hill neighborhood were damaged, according to a campus-wide email by Lafayette Communications.
The first outage occurred at 6:40 p.m. when heavy winds topped 40 mph and precipitated a wind advisory in Northampton County, according to data from the National Weather Service.
Geoff Labe, the assistant vice president of operations, wrote in an email that residence halls and dining halls were the top priority for restoring power.
“Met-Ed was able to fix both issues by Saturday evening, allowing the campus to transition from generator to normal operating power by 9 p.m. that evening,” Labe wrote in an email.
Once all buildings regained power, a second power outage on Saturday evening was “necesssary to return all buildings to normal operating power,” according to another Lafayette Communications campus-wide email.
Kamine Hall, Rubin Hall and both Fisher East and West lost power for a total of 26 hours. Repairs were delayed due to the same heavy winds that had caused the outage, according to Labe.
Why Kamine, Rubin and Fisher were impacted the most could not be confirmed by Labe or Met-Ed, an energy provider encompassing Lafayette’s campus and surrounding areas.
Chris, a representative from Met-Ed who declined to give his last name, explained that some buildings at Lafayette may have experienced a longer power outage because they may have been farther away from the initial location of the outage.
Fright Fest, a late-night Halloween event hosted by Lafayette Activities Forum, faced interruptions after a mechanical pumpkin, ice cream vendor and scare maze were unable to run without power.
“We really leaned on the creative aspects and the non-power aspects,” said Lauren Finley ‘27, the student director of the event.
Justus Starr ‘28, the resident advisor for Fisher West Hall, said that he helped calm the power outage commotion by staying in frequent contact with his residents.
“After every update that was sent out to the Leopard Alerts, I would clarify what the messages meant,” Starr said.
“It was difficult getting dressed and everything,” said Olivia Atienza ‘29, a Kamine Hall resident, who noted that her residence hall was louder and more social as a result of the blackout.
“It also made campus feel unsafe,” she continued.
Two students were trapped in an elevator in Kamine Hall during the blackout, according to Director of Public Safety Jeff Troxell.
Beyond students, neuroscience professor Tamara Stawicki said that the power outage forced several of the machines and fridges in her research lab to stop working.
One machine, an air pump needed to sustain microorganisms that feed the fish in her lab, was without power.
“We wanted to make sure that was fixed as soon as possible, to make sure nothing happened to those critters, because then I couldn’t feed my fish,” she said.