Faculty, staff, and students may recall that Murray State University (MSU) experienced a campus wide power outage, with little advance notice, on January 6-7, 2014 as a result of a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) contractual service interruption. We do not anticipate this happening again during the upcoming holiday break or in the last year of the current TVA contract which expires on August 31, 2015.
Electrical outages caused by other than the TVA contract are also possible at any time. Regardless of the cause, the Facilities Management action plan is basically the same. The following outlines the plan:
COMMUNICATION
If MSU receives a potential pre-outage notice, or an actual outage occurs without prior notice, the following basic communication steps will be implemented:
- A pre-outage communication, if conditions permit, will be sent to the campus community via email and text.
- If Facilities Management does not receive early notice prior to an outage, which is most often the case, communication will be sent as soon as possible after the outage begins.
- The notice will be brief and provide relevant information known at the time.
- Follow-up notices will be issued as new information becomes available.
PLANNING
Appropriate MSU Facilities Management staff have reviewed the January 2014 outage and discussed lessons learned from that record-breaking cold weather and concurrent TVA equipment failure event.
Significant pre-planning and emergency procedures have been implemented to help ensure, to the best of our ability, that basic functions of campus life could still continue during such an unusual emergency situation.
Procedures will include:
- Immediate communication from Facilities Management to the appropriate campus contacts.
-Confirmation of the operation of the 2MW emergency generator providing full power to all residence halls, Winslow Dining Hall and the Wellness Center as well as verification of operation of all independent emergency generators across campus.
- Activation of the Facilities Management trades shop personnel and appropriate departmental staff to respond to the immediate needs of equipment shut downs and draining of water from heating system coils where necessary to protect against freezing if the outage occurs during cold weather.
- Activation of the MSU Emergency Operation Plan, via the MSU Environmental Safety & Health Office and MSU Public Safety, should the estimated duration of the outage require such action.
Please direct comments or questions to Facilities Management at 270-809-4293.