the Informer

After a trying week, the administration is now sitting down to review the process and evaluate the effectiveness of the emergency plan set to action during the recent storm.

Students have been left confused and frustrated by many of the situations that transpired as a result of the loss of power and Lee Peters, Vice President of Student Affairs, explained where some of the procedures stumbled.

“One of the first things to clarify is that when the power goes down, the life safety systems go down,” Peters said, “It is not an issue of liability that students have to be evacuated. It is law. The fire marshal does not allow a building to be occupied without the life safety systems.”

Though the administration knows that many students were angered by the evacuations, it was for their safety.

Once evacuated, the school actually has a very different plan than what occurred set into place.

“According to plan, students are evacuated and then relocated to either hotels or our sister schools including Trinity College and St. Joseph’s,” Peters said, “However, this situation was very different in the fact that everyone was in the same boat. There was nowhere else to turn.”

Therefore, instead of going into hotels or the sister colleges, students were ushered into Gengras Student Union to spend the night. That was when many students began being angry at the fact that there were no cots for them, only floors. That also has an explanation.

“The cots are controlled by the Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA. When the power outages hit, FEMA sent cots first to town shelters,” Peters said, “We do not keep a store of 500 to 1,000 cots on campus for such emergencies like this.”

Another issue that student encountered was lack of communication. While Peters said the University realizes that communication with parents was a large issue, the school cannot be completely blamed for the confusion revolving around class cancelations.

“We received very conflicting messages from Connecticut Light and Power,” Peters said.

Like many in the state, predictions for power restoration was muddled and many times, false. The administration was just as confused as students were.

Also, the school was never running on generator power. Although the school has two large generators worth $2 million each, they did not have to use them except for five minutes on Monday, Oct. 31.

“We will be in consideration of the $2 million purchase of another generator for the other half of the campus that was without power,” Peters said.

In result of the emergency, a committee will be meeting to discuss and further evaluate the emergency plan in an after action review session occurring next week.