The Gatepost Editorial: Don’t pull the plug on communication

By The Gatepost Editorial Board If you stayed on campus this past weekend, the cold, wet weather wasn’t your biggest concern. The problem we all suddenly faced was that other than the McCarthy Center, West Hall, and Miles Bibb Hall, the campus had no power for nearly a full day. This power outage left residents confused, upset, and in the dark, both about the lack of power starting at approximately 5 a.m. and the lack of any communication from the administration until approximately 11 a.m. Power outages aren’t always preventable, but not communicating vital information to students is. With all of the offices on campus that could have communicated with residents about the outage - Facilities, FSUPD, Dean of Students, and Residence Life - why did residents have to wait six hours to hear an official word from anyone? The first official notification to the community was in the form of an FSU Alert sent at 11:08 a.m., which stated, “The University is currently experiencing a power outage. Crews are working to resolve the issue at this time. McCarthy Building has power.” These three sentences don’t even begin to address what students needed to hear. FSU Alerts are intended to quickly send information to the entire campus in the event of emergencies. They are short and to the point so they can convey pertinent information as quickly as possible. This message was sent hours after the actual emergency began. This vague alert is what should have been sent out in the morning soon after the outage occurred. Six hours gave University officials plenty of time to assemble more than three sentences worth of information - information so basic that it wasnt news to anyone by the time it was sent out. Even worse, this first communication still left everyone wondering what happened and how and when it was going to be fixed. A follow-up email was sent at 12:08 p.m. by Jay Hurtubise, assistant dean of students, providing some information about what was going on. The first line of this email stated the University had immediately sent out emergency response personnel to work on the outage in the morning - meaning administrators knew about the outage hours before finally deciding to alert students. Were the students actively dealing with the power outage simply an afterthought for our administration? We understand the outage took everyone on campus by surprise and the top priority was working with Eversource to resolve the issue. However, communication should have been next on the list, not something that was coordinated halfway through the day. These communications gave no information to students about what the timeline for restoring the power was, leaving them wondering if they would be left in the dark once the sun went down. An additional six hours passed before students were sent an update. Six hours of students wondering what caused the outage. Six hours of students worrying about the food in their fridge going bad. Six hours of students not having any answers about the state of their home. When the next email was sent out, it was 6 p.m. The email stated, “At this time, our Facilities team and the power company, Eversource, have developed a plan to restore power to all campus buildings within the next couple of hours. Residents of Larned Hall may experience a minor delay once power is restored to the rest of campus, as the building’s system will require additional work before coming online. Miles Bibb and West Hall are already currently operating with full power, as is the McCarthy Center.” This email is still vague. Though it implies the issue will be resolved soon, it does not explain what exactly is going on in each building. It especially brings up questions for residents of Larned Hall, left wondering why their residence hall is unable to have its power restored along with the rest of the campus. This confusion regarding the state of Larned’s power continued with the next FSU Alert, which was sent to all students with the subject line, “Power Outage Over.” The alert, sent at 8:27 p.m., reads, “Power has been restored to all the areas on Campus, except for Larned Hall. An update will follow.” This subject line is incredibly misleading. It implies that the issue has been completely resolved, despite the fact that many residents were still left without power. No one was told why there were additional issues preventing power from being restored in Larned along with the rest of campus. On top of this, students still weren’t told the cause of this widespread outage until Monday, when a brief explanation was sent at the end of an email about a scheduled power outage later in the week. The email sent on Executive Director of Facilities Dan Giard’s behalf, read, “Saturday’s power loss was due to an electrical switch in Larned Hall that went down.” That short sentence is all students have been told about this outage’s cause. Why did it take two whole days for that sentence to be sent to students? That sentence could have been included in any of the emails from Hurtubise. It should have been one of the first details provided. So many questions would have been answered. All students on campus are adults who deserve the full details of events that directly affect their living environment - even if those details may make us unhappy. Ineffective communication makes us feel worse. The Gatepost Editorial Board believes students deserve timely communication about major events on campus that impact their lives. Waiting six hours before receiving a vague alert telling us information most students already figured it out by themselves isn’t what students deserve. We pay to live and learn on this campus and should be treated with respect. Respect is shown through timely and honest communication. The least the University owes us is to keep us up to date about our homes and our campus. Don’t just leave us in the dark.