Camryn Muuss
Staff Writer
Karina Rodriguez
Editor-in-Chief
Classes were interrupted on Sept. 4 and once again on Wednesday due to city and campus power outages.
As a result of both outages, the University closed for part of both days, cancelled classes and sent students, staff and faculty home.
Amid a blistering heat wave, when temperatures in La Verne soared to 102 degrees, the University experienced two power outages on Wednesday afternoon.
The outages were due to a substation issue and impacted 6,700 Southern California Edison customers in the area, according to Edison.
The Internet was not working on the entire campus.
The first power outage occurred at 4:46 p.m. and affected all the buildings on campus plus the surrounding businesses and neighborhoods.
The outage lasted around four minutes before power resumed.
The second outage came at 5:31 p.m. and prompted the University of La Verne to close for the rest of the day, canceling evening classes.
Athletic practices were slightly impacted by the outage. The volleyball team had finished practice, however they could not do physical recovery as all the workout machines were not working.
La Verne’s main campus remained closed for the rest of the evening Wednesday, though power was restored at 7:06 p.m.
The outage on Sept. 4 left the west side of the main campus without electricity for approximately two hours, creating challenges for students, facilities, and staff as the university worked to resolve the issue.
This outage was caused by a blown transformer in the city of La Verne.
Students were alerted to the situation via texts from ULVALERTs, which urged people to contact Campus Safety for non-emergencies and to contact 911 for emergencies.
As the Athletics Pavilion lost power, a volleyball tournament that was scheduled to take place throughout the day had to be moved to the Claremont Colleges.
“The volleyball tournament… was affected greatly,” said Josh Davis, athletic trainer. “I had to make sure I had enough equipment to take for everybody. We had to truck all of our stuff over to Roberts Pavilion at CMS.”
“I was going to be working the volleyball tournament, so it extended it by a few hours, and I had to drive to Claremont in order to finish out my day doing clinical hours,” said Krupa Bhakta, an athletic training student. “It affected me with two extra hours of work.”
The Sept. 4 outage also affected students living on campus. Without power, students had to navigate the lack of electricity and some campus facilities, as well as the inability to access dorms due to their key fobs not working.
For students trying to complete schoolwork, the outage created difficulties accessing WiFi.
“I couldn’t do anything, not even my data,” Tyler Humphrey, junior computer engineering major, said. “The service in there was terrible.”
The provost’s office decided at 12:54 pm Friday to close campus “to prevent all of those accidents from happening,” said Daniel Toro Gonzalez, assistant provost for faculty affairs.
Power was restored around two hours later. Dorms and all facilities were accessible, and the volleyball tournament was resumed in the Tents on Saturday.
To prevent outages, the Los Angeles Department of Water urges people to conserve energy until 8 p.m.
This is a difficult request as temperatures soared on Wednesday to 108 in La Verne, and neighboring cities such as Claremont and Pomona had similar temperatures.
Conserving energy helps relieve strain on the power grid, thus preventing outages.
Southern California Edison has a maintenance outage scheduled for Friday and will affect areas near the University of La Verne.
The scheduled outage will begin at 11 a.m. and conclude at 1 p.m.
Camryn Muuss can be reached at camryn.muuss@laverne.edu.
Karina Rodriguez can be reached at karina.rodriguez3@laverne.edu.
Camryn Muuss is a junior communications major with a concentration in public relations, and a staff writer for the Campus Times.
Karina Rodriguez is a senior journalism major with a concentration in broadcast journalism, and editor-in-chief of the Campus Times. She has previously served as sports editor, social media editor, arts editor and a staff writer.
