By Michelle McIntosh and
Link Johnson
The Scene staff
Some students were enjoying free food and music in the Forest Park cafeteria as part of Sunfest. Others were studying in the library or listening to lectures in classrooms.
Then the lights went out.
“We had a faulty switch at our Tamm substation,” said Ameren spokesman Bryan Daniels. “The outage affected 5,400 customers. It started at 11:52 a.m., and power was restored at 12:33 p.m. Our crews responded immediately and gave a full 100 percent.”
The campus blackout on Wednesday caused three people to get stuck in a Student Center elevator, including Forest Park Police Chief Richard Banahan and two student workers.
“We played Jeopardy until the fire department got us out,” Banahan said. “We were in there for about 20 minutes.”
Student Government Association representatives continued to serve hot dogs and hamburgers in the cafeteria, but the D.J. couldn’t play music and the snow-cone machine stopped working.
Forest Park police patrolled dark corridors to make sure students, faculty and staff were safe.
“It wasn’t a security issue,” Banahan said. “We were trying to provide a service.”
The power outage caused the biggest problem for people who lost data when their computers shut down.
“I was like, ‘Oh, my goodness, I just lost everything,’” said nursing major Maxine Wheeler, 19, who was working in the D Tower computer lab.
Several instructors cancelled classes after their classrooms went dark or heated up.
Communications adjunct faculty member Repps Hudson moved his journalism class into the hallway on the fourth floor of F Tower.
“It has good lighting (because of the windows),” he said.
Down the hall, nursing students from the Meramec campus continued their lessons with an obstetric mannequin simulator. But they had to deliver babies the old-fashioned way, without use of computer monitors.
“Only Forest Park has this simulator,” said nursing instructor Cheryl Strahm.
Next door in the Funeral Services department, instructor Steve Koosmann and his class worked on a “restorative art” project, practicing how to prepare faces for funerals.
Some students stayed in the dark classroom, but Stephanie Hilker took her project out to the hallway.
“It is a shame that (the power outage) disrupted classes,” said President Cindy Hess, who conferred with the Forest Park emergency management team in the Student Center’s second-floor lobby.
“Our campus experiences power outages once or twice a year.”
The blackout stopped services for 45 minutes at Forest Park’s Dental Hygiene Clinic. Much of its equipment requires electricity.
When the lights came back on, some student hygienists had no patients to treat.
“It’s unexpected, but you have to roll with the punches,” said Kim Polk, clinic director.