Power outage impacts residents of UMW Apartments and College Heights

by CAPERTON BEIRNE

Staff Writer

Monday, April 18, the UMW Apartments and houses in University Heights experienced a power outage due to an issue with Dominion Power in the Fredericksburg area. The outage affected university students in the apartment buildings and off campus.

“There was an issue with Dominion Power and the Fredericksburg area, which caused a few buildings on campus to be affected,” said Dave Fleming, the assistant dean of resident life and housing. 

The power was out for multiple hours starting mid-morning and coming back on in the afternoon. 

“Many students contacted me because they were unable to enter the buildings since the card reader was down and were unsure how to get into their rooms,” said junior biomedical sciences major Jess Mimms, a resident assistant in the UMW Apartments.

Senior historic preservation major Libby Wruck was unable to get back into the apartment while leaving during the power outage. 

“I was leaving for class and forgot something,” said Wruck. “When I tried to get back in, the doors wouldn’t open so my girlfriend had to let me back into the building.

Junior biomedical sciences major Mikaela O’Fallon lives off-campus in University Heights. She was in the shower when she lost power in her home. 

“My bathroom does not get a lot of light and the rain had made sure there was almost no natural light coming in,” said O’Fallon. “When the power went out the room went totally black. My wifi was also out and I needed to study for my exams this week and for finals week.”

Wruck’s finals work was also affected by this outage. 

“I needed to work on some final papers and it really slowed me down cause I had to do all my research on my phone,” said Wruck. 

Freshman business major Lauren Boucher also had her school work affected by the outage. Boucher was in the apartments at the time of the outage socializing with upperclassmen friends and working on school work ahead of finals.

“My computer was almost dead when the power went out and I couldn’t charge it during the outage, so I had to stop doing school work until it came back on,” said Boucher. “It definitely was annoying and unexpected, but not the end of the world.”