A Message from the President: Nstar Has Restored Power to Entire Campus
October 31, 2012
Dear Members of the Mount Ida Community:
I am pleased to report that NStar has restored full power to our entire campus. As you would anticipate, we are undertaking a thorough cleaning of our residence halls and dining facilities. As a result, meal service will occur in Alumnae Hall for one more night, tonight. Normal food service will resume in the dining facilities tomorrow.
As you know from my communication yesterday morning, the campus experienced rolling power outages, which were initially reported by NStar to be an intermittent service problem. At the time of my communication, we had assurances from NStar that necessary repairs would be completed by the afternoon. Notwithstanding these assurances, NStar later informed us yesterday afternoon that more extensive repairs were required.
I began working closely with the Mayor of the City of Newton, the Newton Fire Department and senior executives from NStar to expedite the restoration of power to campus. Simultaneously, I directed our facilities staff to locate and install emergency generators to the affected buildings. As a result of massive regional power outages, we were unable to locate generators before NStar completed its work. However, when it became clear last evening that power would not be restored, together with the Fire Department of the City of Newton, I arranged for a fire department official to be in place on each floor of each residence throughout the night.
Our Residence Life Staff has been communicating with students through meetings in Alumnae Hall and through the students’ RAs. We also continued to provide hot and cold food service to students in Alumnae Hall.
Mobile generators will remain on campus against any contingency in the near future and notwithstanding the fact that full power has been restored. I again thank our facilities department, our food service providers, our public safety officers, and, in particular, our residence life staff, all of whose efforts were extraordinarily helpful during this power outage.
The important thing to learn from this circumstance is that we are a strong community at Mount Ida College, which can manage challenges and move forward. My sincere appreciation to each and every one of you.
Very Truly Yours,
Barry Brown
President