Creighton University’s campus experienced power outages west of 24th street on Tuesday, March 1, resulting in the shutting down of the Kiewit Fitness Center, Starbucks, Kiewit Residence Hall, Gallagher Residence Hall and Becker Dining Hall as well as the loss of power in western campus academic buildings.
According to Jim Berscheidt, Creighton chief communications and marketing officer at the press conference the day of the outage, the power loss was caused by a failure of two circuits west of 24th and Burt streets. “The problem was not OPPD lines. We are working currently to restore power as soon as possible. We have a large backup generator that is arriving and also a transformer, and that will serve as temporary power until everything is repaired.”
Students first received word of the power outage via an email sent Tuesday morning. Several classes in the College of Arts and Sciences were cancelled or released early because of the lack of electricity.
Residents of Gallagher Hall and Kiewit Hall were told they were either to spend the night in the Sokol Arena, (where over 300 cots had been set up by the Douglas County Emergency Management Division as well as Creighton staff to accommodate the displaced students), or find an alternative place to spend the night. However, even though around 675 students were evacuated from their residence halls, only seven students actually spent the night in the arena. Other students found hospitality in upperclassmen’s dorms, fellow freshmen’s dorms, or relatives in the Omaha area.
Buildings east of 24th street — including the Mike and Josie Harper Center and the Rasmussen Fitness and Sports Center — were largely unaffected and able to stay open. All other residence halls remained operational as well, including Deglman, Swanson and McGloin halls.
“In the morning, on Tuesday, we just started getting messages from our staff that the power had gone out,” says Gallagher Hall resident adviser and Heider College of Business junior Lizzie Quinones.
“We hadn’t really expected it to go out for as long as it did,” Quinones added, “but I think they were really good about communication and making things happen as we found out more information, and so, at a certain point, we told all of our residents to evacuate the building because our emergency lights had run out of battery — which meant that the […] smoke detectors didn’t work — and so, if there was a fire, we wouldn’t be safe in the building. So we just told our residents they had a very short amount of time to pack a bag and leave for the night.”
“In this first year of my presidency, I continue to be inspired by our sense of community,” Creighton’s president, the Rev. Daniel Hendrickson, S.J., in an email to the student body said. “Students, in particular, extended exceptional hospitality to residents of Kiewit and Gallagher Halls. I am grateful to everyone who offered support collaboratively and comprehensively.”
By Wednesday morning, power had been temporarily restored because of the backup generator, and faculty, students and staff were asked to use minimal energy in order to conserve the generator power for as long as possible before full power was able to be restored. Kiewit and Gallagher halls were opened at 9 a.m. with limited heat and hot water available.
Power outages recurred during the time of repair throughout the rest of the week including intermittent outages on Saturday, March 5 and two planned outages for one hour each on Monday, March 7.