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Southern University: Power restored after Tuesday's 'sporadic outages'
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BATON ROUGE — Southern University said power was restored Tuesday evening after "sporadic outages" plagued the campus throughout the day, the latest instance in a string of recent electricity issues at the school.
Tuesday's outages began around 7:45 a.m., the school said in a prepared statement on social media. Just before 5 p.m., university officials announced that power was back and that Homecoming week activities scheduled for the evening would continue as planned.
The outages started after a breaker at the Swan Street Utility Substation tripped due to a fault within the campus distribution system, Southern said.
As of 4:49 p.m., school officials said power had been fully restored to the F.G. Clark Activity Center, Southern University Lab School and the majority of affected academic buildings.
"Generators were deployed to provide temporary service to Bethune, Grandison, Reed and White halls while troubleshooting continued," the university said in the Tuesday evening announcement.
University officials said Grandison and Bethune are on regular utility power, while White and Reed are on generator power at this time.
Residential buildings at the rear of campus were not affected and the dining facilities at Mayberry and Dunn halls "remained operational throughout the outage," the university added.
According to students, the repeated disruptions are taking a heavy toll on their education and causing frustration.
"The power's been going out since I've got here. This is my second year. It's kind of embarrassing. Alumni are pretty mad about it. People have to try to take showers with no lights, no AC. Nothing," Southern University student Jace Blalock said.
That sentiment is shared by Southern's Chancellor, John Pierre.
"I'm very frustrated, but we're making substantial investments in improvements in terms of access points for WiFi and all those things that are going to help those students succeed," Pierre said.
The latest outage comes just days after the Chancellor told WBRZ that blackouts were behind the university, pointing to scheduled maintenance meant to resolve the issue.
"We're doing everything possible to solve a problem that was unexpected at the time it came, but we have done everything possible to make sure the students don't have any interruption in their academic learning process," Pierre said.
However, that planned maintenance outage was postponed, and the grid failed again shortly after.
Public Service Commissioner Davante Lewis said student frustrations are valid.
"They're absolutely valid, and I think the students and the parents need to call the institution and the board and say, you must prioritize this. It is unacceptable, I think, for us to see a football game continue to go on," Lewis said.
Lewis said Southern's aging electrical infrastructure is behind the outages.
The Chancellor told WBRZ what Southern officials believe was the cause of Tuesday's outage.
"We went to the substation, the Swann Avenue Substation, which is where Entergy has that electrical substation that feeds into the campus. We learned that the breaker had been kicked off and that we think that the source of the problem came from within the distribution system on the Baton Rouge landmass," Pierre said.
Multiple electric companies were brought in to help fix the problem, restoring power to the F.G. Clark Activity Center, Southern University Lab and the majority of the affected buildings.
Chancellor Pierre says the university knows what it needs specifically to address the problems it's been having with power.
"We know the real issue is a switchgear, which has been a nagging issue for us. That's where the problem is, and we're actually having a new one built and delivered," Pierre said.
However, he says that will take time.
"We know the main thing we have already ordered is about nine months away, unfortunately. It's being built. These are just not the kind of things you just go find on the shelf; they have to be built," Pierre said.
When asked how Southern got to this situation, Pierre had this to say.
"Deferred maintenance is a huge issue across higher education, and it's not just Southern University, but unfortunately for us, the root cause has come to harm us maybe earlier than we would've wanted to, but we're going to deal with it. The legislature has begun to address this issue," Pierre said.
Pierre also noted that Southern faces roughly $1.5 million in deferred maintenance needs and has already spent about $2 million on campus-wide repairs while seeking additional funding. He says the university plans to ask the Louisiana Legislature for more money in the next session.
"We know that the real solution is about a $40-$50 million solution over time and that's something we're going to have to do because we have an aging infrastructure and we're adding more buildings on this landmass," Pierre said.
State officials have also been discussing the issue. "My office, the governor's office, the mayor's office, the state legislature, our congressmen — we have met multiple times with the leadership, and I think now is the time for them to really be forceful and explain to the public what is going on and where they are going to make these investments and when. The drip, drip, drip solution I don't think works anymore," Lewis said.
Lewis said he wants the state to make Southern's electrical grid a top funding priority. "We are looking around for federal resources to ensure that we can make the needed investments, and I'm going to push the state legislature to fund Southern's electrical grid as a number one priority in this upcoming budget, because we know if students cannot go to class, they cannot pass," Lewis said.
The Chancellor does say there will be no changes to any of this week's planned homecoming activities at the moment, including Wednesday's Miss Southern coronation.
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