Sarah KliffParts of St. Louis, including areas around Washington University, are still without power since last Thursday’s storm. Although the Ameren Electric services’ Web site has been continuously updating its customers with information, it makes no promises as to when residents’ power will be restored.
According to Cheryl Stephens, associate director of Residential Life, the east wing of Greenway apartments has not had power and the University itself has little control over when the power will come back on.
“This isn’t something ResLife or Wash. U. can control. We’re kind of in this with the rest of the city,” said Stephens.
The University worked to accommodate students starting almost immediately after the storm.
“We set up things for our students as of Friday. We sent out e-mails and posted signs letting them know we weren’t sure how long it would last. We also reserved the Lopata multi-purpose room so folks could sleep down there if they wanted,” said Stephens.
Stephens continued to explain that Reslife also made appropriate accommodations to allow off-campus students card access to the building.
As the days continued without power, however, Reslife decided to take further action.
“Yesterday, we decided to go ahead and get hotel rooms at the Cheshire Inn,” said Stephens.
About 20 students took Reslife up on its offer to stay in a hotel Monday night. Hotel rooms were also reserved for Tuesday night.
Senior Nik Hornback took advantage of the hotel accommodation Monday.
“It’s comfortable, I guess.I just keep going home and checking [to see if the power is back]” said Hornback.
Hornback stayed in his apartment until “it dropped to 37 degrees,” at which point he decided to go to the hotel.
Senior Scott Dixon does not live in University-owned housing but in the quadrangle, where his power is also out, but no hotel stay has been offered. Dixon explained that he, along with most of his friends, is staying over at friends’ houses.
The power outages have affected Dixon and many others in terms of academics, as well.
“I had a paper due tomorrow that I talked to the professor about and he said I could turn it in whenever I got my power back on.” Dixon also said that he has been spending all day in the library.
Hornback also experienced some difficulties.
“I have three finals that I’ve barely studied for because I have no power or light in my apartment,” said Hornback.
Other universities throughout St. Louis also experienced power outages on parts of campus.
“Since we weren’t real sure how long it would be, [we] made the decision to close the residential halls,” said Michelle Hechinger of the student affairs department at Fontbonne. “Everyone was able to get housing.[some] went to friends’ or teammates’ and a few ended up at Concordia.”
Fontbonne cancelled classes on Friday and Saturday for students. They have since had their power restored.
According to Hechinger, this has not happened before when students have been on campus.
However the University has had to deal with less severe power outages before. Stephens explained that since each situation is different there is no step-by-step procedure in place, but they do have supplies such as flashlights stored for situations.
There are still some students without power, but according to Ameren, power is expected to be back on soon.
“We expect the power to be back on within a couple of days,” said Stephens. “We are just keeping our fingers crossed.”