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 Contents News Editorial Humor. 6 Student Life 7-8 Sports 9-10 Contact Us Newsroom: 898-6488 Fax: 898-6019 E-mail: jahloos@psu.edu Our offices are located down stairs in the Reed Union Building. 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 ftß dsoy ' f a? ; '? ' V - v A < „ a \ V Va 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
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