Facilities Management provided a timeline with details of the February power outage at the Board of Regents quarterly meeting.
Jason Youngblood, Facilities Management director, provided details such as what failed, rental equipment and relevant repair items being shipped in from Atlanta.
Tom Waldrop, regent, questioned if the melted copper conducter had anything to do with deferred maintenance in the buildings. Youngblood said it had little to do with that subject.
“This conductor that got hit … really wasn’t that old,” Youngblood said. “It’s not necessarily an age thing.”
“There’s a lot of discussion about deferred maintenance,” Waldrop said. “When really copper conductors can work for generations.”
David Wilson, Housing director, said kerosene generators “saved our butts” while restoration was done on the residence halls White and Regents in harsh conditions, which required the doors to be boarded up, according to residents. Wilson also criticized the media for reporting on the boarded up doors after the student evacuation.
“It’s funny … everybody went wild,” Wilson said.
Youngblood said he appreciates everyone “who stepped up” during the crisis.
“Contracted partners, everybody that responded,” Youngblood said. “The rental company, I was calling them on a Sunday evening getting rental equipment. … Everybody stepped up and helped us get what we needed.”
Bob Jackson, Murray State president, said there are a lot of things in his role he can control, “but most he can’t.” He also said the University cannot control lightning strikes.
“We can’t control ice storms,” Jackson said. “We can’t control a lot of other things like that, weather related. … We battled this.”
Jackson said he thanks “everyone involved” during the week of the outage. He said many were active at 4 a.m. that day, working around the clock during the week with little to no sleep, trying to “respond for the health and welfare” of the students.
“I realize fully it was an inconvenience to me,” Jackson said. “I wish we could control these things again, and it was an inconvenience to me, and I apologize. But, I want to thank our students as it relates to understanding and getting them back into their spaces, their rooms, their homes quickly and safely.”
Jackson also said it was “an unusual event” and the University “responded well.”
Samuel Harless, petition starter for “Demand Accountability for Murray State University’s Negligent Infrastructure,” was asked by a News reporter what he thought about Jackson’s own “inconvenience” and apology.
Harless said there is nothing worth responding to.
“I honestly have nothing to say in response to that,” Harless said. “It’s about the only apology or acknowledgement we will ever get.”
