Power Outage Closes School, Leaves Campus in The Dark

A campus-wide power outage shut down Valley College Thursday afternoon, abruptly sending students, faculty and staff home early and preventing hundreds of evening students and faculty unaware of the closure from attending class.

High winds that knocked out power for more than 100,000 people across Southern California are believed to be the cause of the outage, which occurred at approximately 3:30 p.m., creating confusion on campus.

"[The power was out] for almost two hours," said math lab tutor Aida Kolesnikova. "All the students were here when it went out and they stayed."

Kolesnikova said she heard unofficial rumors the school was closing and that she continued working at the lab because the students didn't want to leave.

"I was in the middle of [asking] a question when the lights went out and it didn't even interrupt me," said Nicolas Roy, a math student in the lab. "I'm not afraid of not having lights."

Students in the math lab and other buildings used light from open windows to keep working while waiting for power to return until they were told to go home by security cadets around 5:30 p.m.

Valley President Tyree Wieder was on campus when the outage occurred and made the decision to cancel all remaining classes when she was told that the electricity wouldn't be back for the rest of the day.

"All of our power was out so we did not have access to telephones nor the college Internet," Wieder said in a campus-wide e-mail sent out on Monday. "[Vice President] Tronto and I met with [Plant Facilities Director Tom Lopez] and the college Sheriff to discuss what was to be done. [The] DWP had informed us that power would be out a minimum of 5 to 6 hours, so holding evening classes would be impossible. We set out to notify faculty, staff and students that were currently on campus to leave as it would soon be getting dark."

Security cadets and faculty and staff volunteers walked through each building, individually checking on each door and telling everyone to go home because the school was closed.

Wieder said the college then discussed how they might notify evening faculty, staff and students not to come in. Since the telephones were out, she said they were unable to make any calls, even across campus.

Handwritten notes with the words "School closed due to power outage" and "Classes canceled" were taped on to the doors of each building. The entrances on Fulton Avenue were also closed off by security personnel.

"We closed the two main entrances to control traffic from coming in at about 4 p.m.," said Los Angeles County Sheriff's Security Officer Jennifer Cardenas. "We're going to stay here until we find out when the power is coming back on."

Hundreds of students and teachers in their cars were turned away and told to go home as they attempted to enter the parking lots. They were told "The power's out and the schools closed" by cadets before moving traffic forced them to leave.

Many were visibly confused as to exactly what was going on, and while some expressed frustration at not knowing about the closure, all were left with no choice but to turn back.

"I came on the bus and was going to go to the library to print some stuff, but now I can't," said student Luis Perez. "Now all I can do is wait for the next bus and go back home."

Plant Facilities Director Tom Lopez came in on an emergency shift at 3 a.m. to work on the issue, according to Perla Lombrano, Maintenance and Operations secretary. Power was restored at about 5 a.m. Friday morning, in time for Valley to open for the day's regular schedule.

While she admitted that some things "could have been smoother" Wieder said she appreciated the help given by all those who volunteered.

" Each of these incidents is an opportunity for us to improve how we handle these 'emergency' events," Wieder said in Monday's e-mail. "We learn something each time to help us with the next time, and unfortunately there will always be another time for us react to the unexpected."