Why is it that the more I find out about the blackout, the angrier I get? I was angry when I received a phone message five hours in that told me that there was a blackout and not to use candles. Then I was angrier when I heard that the reason they waited so long was to make sure that they could provide useful information but then inexplicably failed to actually do so.
I was unhappy to find myself locked out of my dorm, but somewhat happier when I found the door that somebody had helpfully jammed open. I was absolutely furious when I read that the police were going around and un-jamming doors. Each of our rooms has a wonderful device on it known as a lock. That lock protects the physical items inside from theft, and protects any individual inside from whatever unlawful activities may be perpetrated by townies, other students or angry squirrels. That lock is not dependent on electricity. If I had to choose between being locked out of my dorm on a lightless campus and being able to get to my room at the risk that other people might get into the emergency-lit hallways, it's not a tough call, and someone up top made the wrong decision.
I was annoyed by the blackout, but I recognize that these things happen. I was more annoyed when I realized that it was purely a Tufts-campus problem and that, while I was locked out of my dorm, essential college locations like the frats were doing just fine. I was even more annoyed to hear that this had happened in 2002, and since then it had apparently not occurred to anybody to plan for another extended power outage. I was then, shall we say, less than thrilled to read that, "Obviously, everything is working now, but we still don't know what the cause of the blackout was and we may never know" in an Oct. 17 Tufts Daily article.
Here are some suggestions from an ignorant student: It was good that Dewick and Cousens were open and powered. It would have been better if I had been informed that Dewick was open, since I had no desire to walk across the lightless campus swarming with rapidly moving police cruisers (and at least one car accident) to sit in a gym. An emergency message system is good for keeping people informed so that they can make rational decisions. That system should be used to get people prompt information as rapidly as possible. If you don't know what is going on, tell people something as soon as possible and then send out updates. More importantly, even if you have no real information, try to create an impression that you are aware of the problem, that you are working on the problem and that your concern is for the students who are reliant on the university for food, heat, toilets, shelter and security. The impression I got was that something had gone wrong, but because it was a three-day weekend, nobody at the top was aware, and the police had only been called in to prevent the students from looting. To put it succinctly, the goal is to seem better than FEMA.
The doors thing was probably the biggest problem from my perspective. Things should be designed in such a way that if they fail, they fail gracefully. Doors without power should still be able to do what doors do: either let people in or keep people out. As it was, they did not do a great job of letting people in, but because the predictable reaction of people was to jam them open, they also did not do a great job of keeping people out (and a jammed open door is a door easily recognized as insecure, an invitation for theft and evil-doing, while a shut but unlocked door at least preserves some ambiguity).
As stated above, it seems to me that in the event of electronic lock failure, there is an obvious fallback: the mechanical locks on room doors. The electronic locks should default to open in the event of a failure. If that is not possible, other arrangements need to be made for allowing people access to their homes. Whether those arrangements are cops stationed at the doors (probably not the best use of our excellent police force) or a sign taped to the door with the duty RA's cell number (we have RAs for a reason after all), something should have been done beyond having the cops go around and un-jam the doors. Handing out flashlights was a nice idea, but obviously not implemented sufficiently well for me to have been aware of it before I could read about it in the Daily.
I'm not unreasonable; I do not expect the university to take care of our every little desire, and neither am I ignorant of the costs. I do not blame the university for my having to throw out the food from my freezer; that's my fault for having a fridge with bad insulation. I do blame the university for not telling me about the power outage immediately (I was off campus until 4:00 p.m.) and for not saying straight out that the power would be out for a long time, as those two pieces of information would have allowed me the opportunity to find someone with electricity and freezer space.
I do not blame the university for the power outage, but I do blame the university for its lack of preparation for such a predictable occurrence. I blame the university for leaving me and thousands of other students locked out of our homes when simple actions (like the aforementioned piece of paper with an RA's cell number) would have solved the problem so easily. I do not blame the police for being unable to do much (there was not all that much that anybody could do), and in fact, we should thank them for surrendering their weekend to spend all night trying to help us. I do blame the police for failing to be approachable and informative, as well as for giving the impression that the students themselves were in some way the biggest threat at the time.
At Virginia Tech, the campus student media did a better job than the administration of communicating information to the student population. While comparing our little power outage to the Virginia Tech shootings and to Hurricane Katrina's devastation of New Orleans is obviously comparing apples to some much larger and more important fruit, we should be able to expect a more timely, informative and effective response from the university. We should be able to expect the university to make efforts to find out what would have helped the students during a power outage and to inform the students of plans for similar events in the future. As it is, I expect we will have to rely on the Daily, and for some reason I find that more comforting.James Richards is a senior majoring in quantitative economics.
--James Richards is a senior majoring in quantitative economics.
