Gregory College House residents suffer loss of power

The cause of a series of power outages that has been inconveniencing residents of Gregory College House for the past two days was determined last night by Facilities and Real Estate Services.

According to Gregory College House Dean Chris Donovan, the problem stemmed from faulty wiring in the building's basement workshop used by Facilities and Real Estate Services.

Students and College House staff living on the second and fourth floors of Van Pelt Manor faced four outages -- two occurring on Monday night and two last night.

Residents estimate they were without electricity for about 1 1/2 hours in total.

According to Donovan, Facilities and Real Estate Services representatives originally believed the cause to be a resident plugging in an "illegal appliance," causing the circuit to short.

All outages affected a select set of rooms on the western side of both the second and fourth floors.

Students entering their first full week of classes said they were disgruntled last night by the fact that they could not read, study or work on the computer in their rooms.

"It is frustrating because we are not able to work," Nursing sophomore Gail Gamab said. "We can't haul our stuff to another floor or another building. I am afraid if I am writing a paper and it [might happen] again. What if I don't save, and lose information?"

With many professors relying on online resources to communicate with students, residents were stuck without access to their classes.

"We can't work here," College sophomore Chaleigh Mazula said. "Our lives are on hold. I want to cry."

Many residents complained about the loss of fan power to circulate air, since the building's hallways are not air-conditioned.

"I have no fan, so my room is muggy," said Neha Desai, a Wharton freshman and fourth-floor Gregory House resident.

Residents without electricity on Monday night were allowed to study in the lighted and air-conditioned study room on the third floor of the building.

According to Donovan, this is his "sixth year living [in Van Pelt Manor], and I have never seen this happen before."

While fourth-floor Gregory House graduate associate Brette Fishman said that she has not heard complaints about information losses due to the power outage, she said students have been upset about food spoilage from defrosted refrigerators.

"I lost like $20 worth of pizza bagel bites," second-floor Van Pelt resident and College freshman Mike Franklin said.

Over the summer, wiring in the Facilities and Real Estate Services shop was replaced. Since there were very few people using the building at that time, it did not arise as an issue until now, according to officials.

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