THE BEHREND BEACON
Friday, September 15, 2006
“We are determined,
pas
sionate and confident that
we can come out and win
the AMCC this year.”
Behrend campus left in the dark after construction mishap
By Jerry Pohl
staff writer
Students, faculty and staff of Behrend were left in
the dark on Wednesday, September 13, after a
major power outage hit the campus. The outage
occurred shortly after 3 p.m. when a construction
worker operating a backhoe accidentally struck a
19,000 volt cable. When the cable was cut, circuit
breakers sensed a fault in the line and cut the power
as a safety precaution. The outage affected not only
the campus, but significant parts of the surrounding
Jerry Pohl/ THE BEHREND BEACON
Crews worked to restore power to campus after the
incident with underground electric cables.
Parking situations on campus cause concern for commuters and residents alike
By Heather Heenan
With the largest freshmen class ever coming to Behrend and
the opening of the REDC, one of the issues that pops up is
parking. Dr. Ken Miller, Director of Student Affairs, deals
with such issues as parking problems and other
confusions.
There are currently 3,912 students enrolled and
1,680 students that live on campus at Behrend.
To apply for a parking permit, students can fill out
a form on-line http://www.pserie.psu.edu/. The
cost of parking has increased from previous years.
For fall 2006, for resident and commuters, the
price to park is $l4O. For fall 2006 and spring
2007, for resident and commuters, the price to
park is $230. For summer 2007, the price to park
is $7O. Temporary permits are $2 per day.
The next parking lot to be built will be a parking structure
behind the REDC. It should open late next fall. It will have
three levels of parking. The campus will not run out of places
for people to park because there are more spaces on demand.
The REDC faculty and staff would like additional parking as
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E-mail: jahloos@psu.edu
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staff writer
Student's
...1-3
An act of theft took place in Erie Hall’s
parking lot between 9:30 and 10:45 a.m.
to Emily Zimmerman’s vehicle. The vehi
cle’s two front tires were removed and
replaced with 15-inch ones that were
“worn down,” says Zimmerman, whose
original tires were 16 inches.
After leaving her yoga class
Zimmerman returned to her car and didn’t
notice the tires were not hers at first. After
starting the car and attempting to back up
it “made a loud sound like the transmis
sion” according to Zimmerman. A student
pointed out that the two front tires did not
match the other two.
“It just seems like someone wasted
their time because if the tires on my car
didn’t fit - they won’t fit on theirs. It’s
aggravating. I don’t have a car for a
week,” says Zimmerman.
For the tires to be replaced,
Zimmerman will pay $lBl for her insur-
-Kara Struski j
area as well,
The cable was cut while workers were clearing
roots at the site of the new 3000 sq ft maintenance
garage. People at the scene describe hearing a loud
bang and seeing smoke after the cable was cut.
Behrend's maintenance staff immediately called the
local electric company, Penelec, to inform them of
the situation. Penelec crews arrived quickly and
disconnected the fuses to the cable. Workers
restored power to the campus and surrounding area
within an hour.
Pennsylvania requires people to call an 800 num
ber at least three days before they dig to prevent
lines and cables from being destroyed. General
contractor, Brent Sesler, says he called the number
more than 3 days before digging. Sesler says
Pennsylvania One Call notified him by fax that the
area was clear. Penelec is currently looking into
why the cable was not listed.
During the hour-long outage, students were
inconvenienced in several ways. Aside from the
obvious loss of computer data and class cancella
tions, several students had stories to call home
about. Freshman Mechanical Engineering major,
Brian Retkiewicz, was awakened from a sound
sleep in Niagara Hall when a fire alarm sounded as
a result of the outage. Sophomore Elise Ventura, a
Communication Sciences and Disorders major says
she was unable to get into Porcupine Hall during
the outage because her access card wouldn't work.
Political Science professor Dr. Donald Wagner
would not let a blackout stand in the way of educa
tion. Wagner moved his Constitutional Law class to
a classroom with windows so he had enough light
to lecture. Senior Political Science & History
major, Nadine Granjean says Wagner put the outage
in perspective. “He said we shouldn’t complain
because the people who wrote the constitution did
n’t have electricity,” Granjean said.
they are in temporary parking spaces on Technology Drive.
The Police Services have been very helpful in directing stu
dents to appropriate lots.
Enforcement of the parking regulations is always a difficult
process. The police can’t be everywhere all the time. The
additional vehicles on campus do make it tougher for them.
'» Miller believes they do a good job man
aging the parking situation. John Ream,
Director of Operations, and Jim Amann,
Manager of Police Services, have studied
changes in campus parking needs with the
addition of the REDC and have done an
excellent job anticipating the need.
If people try to duplicate parking per
mits, they will get referred to Judicial
Affairs and lose their privileges to park on
campus. People have tried to duplicate
■■‘■permits before. It is important that stu
dents share their feedback about parking to SGA. SGA worked
with Police Services last year to develop a parking plan for res
ident students in particular.
The REDC faculty and
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By Miranda Krause
staff writer
A Penn State Erie Student Publication
Who's
INSIDE
car vandalized
ance deductible. Zimmerman just recently
purchased the vehicle, “Maybe they [cam
pus security] needs to do some more to
protect the vehicles, considering I’m pay
ing $2OO for the parking,’’ says
Zimmerman
Campus security does all they can to
ensure the safety of students and faculty
cars. According to Jim Amann, Manager
of Safety and Security, “That [tires being
replaced] happened on a weekday morn
ing, the lot was full of students. Other
than the officers patrolling there aren’t
many more measure we can take,” Amann
says.
During the morning, afternoon, and
evening weekdays there is one police offi
cer and one property guard patrolling the
campus parking lots and three days of the
week there are two police officers
patrolling the parking lot at night.
“If anyone knows anything or saw any
thing we’d appreciate them letting us
know,” says Amann. You can contact the
police at ext. 6101 with any information.
Lights went out on the campus of Penn State Behrend as construction crews struck a 19,000 volt cable
underneath the area they were clearing. Areas on campus lost power for approximately one hour.
The greatest impact on campus was the loss of
technology. The campus servers were out for an
additional hour after power was restored. The
servers took more time to become operational again
because when the power went off, the servers
stayed on back-up batteries just long enough for
them to be shut down properly. The servers could
not be booted up again until Penelec called to con
firm that power was stable again. Computers in the
REDC didn’t come online again until even later due
to network connection problems.
Operations officials say the damaged cable will
Many students are confused by the new parking restrictions. With enrollment num
bers growing, the need for more suitable parking has grown as well.
These tires were put on Emily Zimmerman’s car after her tires were taken off during
her yoga class. Police and Saftey were alerted and action will be taken.
The furniture is more
comfortable than last
year s. It s a big
upgrade.”
not be repaired, but instead will be abandoned.
Officials say the cable is being abandoned because
it is in the way of current construction and it's use
is limited. The cable supplied power only to the
pump of the campus water tower near Almv Hall.
The tower is only used to provide water in the win
ter months. A new line will be installed that will
provide power to the water tower. Work on the
maintenance garage is expected to be completed in
February. Contractors say the accident will not
delay the project.
in parking lot
Vol. LIV No. 11l
SIS' !
Emily Zimmerman/THE BEHREND BEACON
f 1
Matt Sirco