BY WALLIS SHANIEH // Recent power outages, across Hood College’s campus,
have left several students fearful of a reoccurrence of a serious outage that occurred in the 2010-2011 academic year. Monday morning, the entire college campus lost power for a little under an hour causing several classes to be cancelled and interrupting daily morning events.

Students living in off-campus housing at Sunset Apartments lost power for about six hours on Monday evening, and left residents unsure of where they would sleep that night. Low temperatures outside and no heat in the apartments left students looking for other places to stay.

The cause of the outages on campus and at Sunset Apartments was unknown, but could potentially be related to the
recent ice and snow that have been causing outages to homes in Frederick and the surrounding area. The streets directly next to campus had lost power for several days during an ice storm the same week.

“I was surprised that we lost power and concerned about heating and the electricity for cooking meals,” said David
Guwani, a student at Hood College who lost power to his off-campus apartment. He still had access to tap water and bottled water that he kept stored in his apartment, but lost heat during the cold winter day.

Housing arrangements were made for students to stay in school-provided housing, on-campus, which had power
returned earlier in the day.

“Apart from taking time to pack and move on campus, the outage did not disrupt my day. All my work was complete so
it gave me an excuse to go and hang out with my friends,” Guwani, said. Not every student was concerned with the loss of power to their homes, as Guwani found a bright side to the outage.

“It wasn’t that big of a deal. I think Hood and the people around me freaked out a bit too much,” said Taylor
Anderson, a student at Hood College who lives in an off-campus apartment. “I stayed at my apartment and just watched movies on my laptop until it came back on around 10:30 after being out for about 6 hours.”

Dan Bryant, a student at Hood College experienced a significant outage to the college’s campus in the winter of the 2010-2011 academic year, due to a water main break. The recent outage had him fearful of a repeat of the event.

“My apartment lost power and another meeting was held to see where we would stay. The only thing that was going through
my mind was a hotel room,” Bryant said.

The 2010-2011 outage caused classes to be cancelled and students had to be removed from the dormitories since there was
no water being supplied to them. They were given the option to return home, stay with friends who had power, or to be moved to a hotel until the power was restored.

“There was no water to take showers, no power to do anything. The power was out all day and my roommate and I had nothing
to do and nowhere to go, along with every other student,” said Bryant.

Many other students who experienced the 2010-2011 outage were afraid that their schedules would be interrupted, and
would have to move once again.

Fortunately, on Monday, the power returned to Sunset Apartments before the end of the night, allowing students to return
to their homes and dismissing their fears.