Mary Bidonde, Staff Writer
On Monday, Oct. 30, around five in the morning the campus was plunged into darkness. Many students woke up to see the power was out and were left wondering what could’ve led to this unexpected occurrence. Some students were wondering if classes would be canceled that day, or if it was going to be similar to the power outage from two years ago. Thankfully that was not the case, by eight-thirty the power was restored to campus. However, an alert was sent out announcing that classes before nine would be canceled. Even if it was the day before, the power outage definitely set the mood for Halloween.
Students were awakened by the flickering of their lights, in their fans, or were already awake when the power outage happened. Curious and confused, one by one students walked out their doors and into the dark hallways. Each student asked if the other had any power before the confirmation was clear, the school had suffered a power outage. RAs got to work on the cause of the outage. They told any students in the hallways that the whole campus didn’t have power and that UPD was on it. With that being said, students returned to their rooms and waited for their electricity to return before the day could fully begin.
Within a couple of hours, power was restored to the campus. It wasn’t long before students fell back into their normal routine to get to class and keep on schedule. Throughout the rest of the day, the campus was buzzing with students talking about the power outage and their experience that morning. Even professors were talking about it in their classes. At the moment, we don’t know the cause of last week’s power outage. It could have been caused by anything. But it’s been suggested that a solar flare may have been the cause. It seems that this random power outage quickly became the biggest talk of the day. Adding a bit of excitement and connecting the Oneonta community. It also added one last fright after Halloweekend came to an end.
Most people who live in upstate New York know power outages are extremely common because of all of the trees and the intense winters we’ve been known to have. Which is why Oneonta has good preparations if there ever should be another blackout on campus. But from how students saw it, the power outage set the stage for Halloween. There’s nothing like a spooky event to get students ready for the holiday. You wake up, the power goes out, and it brings our favorite horror movies to life. Which perhaps motivated some Oneonta students to throw on their costumes the next day. Maybe it inspired students to go out one last time before the holiday was officially over.
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