NOTE: This was written Monday evening, but being without internet until today means no posting on time....
“Hurricane Days” have turned into “Power Outage Days”
When I was in high school and undergrad, the best days were when large storms conspired against higher education and caused cancellation of classes. We Floridians were like a secluded little club in the states, complete with our own language (ya’ll) and handshake. Someone should have scheduled a soccer game against those “Snow Days” Northerners.
Anywho, the new and improved method of befuddling our educators here on The Rock seems to be power outages. They attacked often and without prejudice; they are random and unplanned; they are a pain-in-the-ass and a blessing all rolled up into one. It seems the frequent island blackouts in the last few months have done severe damage to our electrical system on campus, which has been scheduled to be repaired according to Island Time (meaning the electricians shrug their shoulders and say Whatev). Today around noon this culminated in an explosion (which sad-to-say I did not witness or even see the carnage) that left ¾ of the campus without power and all of us without server access. It is unknown how long this will be a problem, but as of now (around 8 hours later) there is still not power in most of the buildings and no internet available.
The Silver Lining, you may ask? Our first final of the semester, Parasitology Lab, was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. After much (inane) debate in a dark and ever-growing-hot classroom, it was decided that our future exam would remain up in the air until further notice. Which we just received via The Grapevine about thirty minutes ago: our exam is cancelled until further notice and will not occur before Wednesday. How was this information given, you might ask? Um, yeah, that would be via The Grapevine Text-Tree. And Facebook. See? All of that time spent checking Facebook every ten minutes finally paid out. Course, it would help if there was internet access to allow the students to access Facebook in the first place. Details.
And thus begins what I can only imagine will be an interesting and supremely challenging Second Semester Final Exam Week(s). Let's all hope I don't OD on caffeine.
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Addendum: Following is an email from the school. Another email talked of a lightning strike. One of my professors today jokingly apologized for not watching where he was urinating. Ah, Island Life.
Oh, and the power went out again today around noon for an hour or so. Just in case you thought the problem was "fixed".
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Hello,
At approximately 12:00 pm yesterday, one of the large electrical breakers on campus failed. The failure resulted in the destruction of several key components. Replacement components were scavenged from two other breakers on campus and power was restored. However, a significant amount of electricity is now coursing through a single breaker. The situation is stable, but it will behoove all of us to lower our consumption of electricity for the next few days. Please avoid energy use (office lights?) when possible.
Replacement parts have been ordered and should be arriving soon. I have spoken with some of the electricians, who are aware of the temporal proximity to final examinations. When the time comes, they will replace the necessary parts as quickly, but safely, as they can.
In regard to IT issues, we lost one server during the power outage. A replacement server is being shipped to the island as quickly as possible. When our overall system rebooted, some memory pertaining to recent software upgrades were temporarily lost. The system was booted a second time and the applications are returning. At the present time, the system is stable and functioning normally.
For faculty with impending examinations, having contingency plans in place, as best they can be arranged, would probably be wise. We anticipate that the electrical grid will be completely restored by the beginning of finals week. I am sorry for the inconveniences all of us have borne. Our people are working hard to keep us functioning normally.
Thank you,
RossU
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