Students that have been at Grambling for a while might say that the power outages are something to get used to. The freshman got a slight tastes for the first time during the fall orientation when the power went out during the comedy show, came back on, then off again a couple hours later. But last Tuesday was the longest one most have experienced.
Ray Dudley, the facilities manager, said that the university found the cause of the power outage.
“A wire connecting to a transformer located by the practice football field failed,” he said.
Dudley got the phone call around 2 a.m. and began taking the proper measures to control the situation.
“I am not sure if anything can be done to prevent something of the particular nature,” he said. “It was just one of those things that happened.”
The school has taken new measures to fix the wire.
“We got a brand new wiring system, and the power was partially turned back on around five a.m.”
Even though the wire that burned out only powered a few buildings, it sent a signal to the main substation located off-campus, that has a safety feature that shuts the power off to the whole campus.
Edrick Cornes, a sophomore from Tunica, Miss., was asleep when the power went out, but because he is an RA for building 400, he had to get up to assist his residents.
“I was watching for suspicious behavior, because people were pulling the fire alarms,” he said.
Things in building 400 were under control, but the residents of building 600 can not say the same.
“Students were busting open the vending machines,” said Justin Madden, a freshman from Los Angeles. “They weren’t acting like they were on a collegiate level.”
With fire alarms going off, the weather conditions did not make the situation any better for those who had to evacuate their rooms.
Rachel Hickerson, a senior from Eunice, compares this blackout to one she experienced her sophomore year.
“People were really acting crazy,” she said of the one during her sophomor year. “They had a party in the streets and the police from Ruston had to come with K9s to help stop it.”
This time around proved different.
“Nothing crazy happened, but I think that there has been over 10 blackouts since I’ve been a student here,” she said.
As the ringing fire alarms subsided, things began to settle down.
However, the power went out again on Wednesday around 11 a.m. Dudley said that outage was intentional.
“It was shut back off to see if the wire was going to hold,” he explained.