Buildings on the Kirkland side of campus suddenly went dark around noon on Sunday. Residence halls and academic spaces alike experienced a power outage.
Upon being alerted by Campus Safety of a southside power outage, Facilities Management informed Hamilton’s utility provider, National Grid, and their high-voltage contractor, who both came to campus within the hour for an assessment. “We discovered the main breaker at our north substation tripped in response to a fault on the southside of campus, causing the initial widespread outage,” said Mike Klapmeyer, Associate Vice President for Facilities and Planning. “We then proceeded to our south substation and discovered the circuit serving Major, Minor, McIntosh, Keehn, Root and List was the source of the outage.”
Although the source of the outage was the circuit for these southside facilities, other buildings were impacted as well in the immediate period post-outage, including Bundy East and West and many other buildings south of College Hill Road. Klapmeyer told The Spectator that “the initial fault at Major Hall set off a chain of events that tripped a main breaker causing the initial widespread outage.”
“We were able to safely restore power to the majority of the south campus at approximately 1:20 p.m. on Sunday,” said Klapmeyer. “Facilities Management inspected the impacted buildings to determine the fault was located inside the transformer vault of Major Hall. We then coordinated with our high-voltage contractor who worked throughout Sunday evening to source the necessary specialized components to initiate repairs first thing Monday morning. Power was restored at 12:35 p.m. Monday.”
A transformer, the faulty part which resulted in the outage, is crucial to converting high-voltage power to low-voltage so that it can be used for a facility’s electrical needs. “The issue was resolved by replacing the damaged components and installing dehumidification equipment within the vault,” said Klapmeyer. To address the risk of future outages, he notes that his office “plan[s] to reroute electrical supply lines into Major Hall next summer.”
An important component of the College’s communication of the outage to the Hamilton community were the measures taken by the Hamilton College Emergency Response Team (HERT). “I was altered to a power outage in Wellin Auditorium,” said Jeffrey Landry, a member of HERT and Hamilton’s Associate Vice President for Student Affairs, on first hearing of the power failure. “After confirming with Campus Safety and Facilities Management that the entire south campus was affected, I immediately notified the Hamilton Emergency Response Team (HERT).” This notice resulted in the campus-wide HERT email. Quickly following the email, HERT met with Facilities Management, where it was concluded that the outage would not be resolved for “several” hours.
Alongside messages sent to community members through the Everbridge system — the same system used during the Jodel shooting threat in April 2023 — the Office of Community Living and HERT reached out to students in residence halls affected by the power loss. The Dean of Faculty’s office, Registrar and the Student Affairs office also worked to ensure that classes in impacted buildings were moved to new spaces.
Julia Granito ’26, a resident of Root Residence Hall, was in her dorm when the power went out. In a conversation with The Spectator, she explained, “I heard it as it happened.” Granito noted a loud, ringing noise, similar to when residence halls’ doors are left open for an extended period. “Then all the lights went off,” she said. At first, Granito explained how she thought the lights would turn back on after a few minutes, since she assumed a “crazy generator” would kick in. Upon receiving the news from the HERT team that the outage would continue overnight, Granito recounted feeling “bummed.” Though running water, card access to buildings and stairwell lights functioned throughout the night, room and communal bathroom lights did not, remaining unusable from the outage.
Despite the unfortunate news of the power outage, the Hamilton community came together. Granito noted how a friend, Bridget Keogh ’26, offered her Babbitt bathroom to friends to use for the evening so they could shower in a bathroom with light.
Just before 2 p.m. on Monday, a HERT email to the campus community attributed the outage to “a faulty transformer part” that had been “identified and repaired,” resulting in the restoration of power to the south side of campus.
