Caution tape surrounded Samuel Phillips Hall following the power outage.
Late Wednesday night, a power outage plunged Andover campus into darkness for the second time this academic year. As soon as the outage began, the Office of the Power Plant (OPP) swiftly began working to fix the problem. While electricity to some dorms such as Paul Revere and Smith House was quickly restored, many buildings only regained power the following day.
Assistant Head for Operations and Finance and Chief Financial Officer Fernando Alonso, sent out an email Thursday morning detailing the cause of the outage and explaining which buildings remained affected. The buildings included Samuel Phillips Hall (SamPhil), Morse Hall, Pearson Hall, and the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library (OWHL).
“Last night a little after midnight, there was a power outage that affected parts of campus. The OPP team immediately began trying to find the location of the problem and began work to restore power. As they went through the process, they found a fault in a manhole outside of Samuel Phillips Hall… OPP and a team of outside contractors have been working all night and continue to work on restoring power and as of right now it looks like it will still be a few hours before we can get these buildings up and running,” wrote Alonso in an email to The Phillipian.
In a second email sent at 9:30 AM, Alonso explained, “Power has now been restored to all buildings, except for Samuel Phillips Hall which will need to remain offline for the remainder of the day. In an unrelated incident, there was a break in a water line in the basement of Samuel Phillips Hall. The 1st and 2nd floor of Sam Phil will be available to classes on Friday. We are working on a relocation plan for classes in the basement for Friday.”
Dorms in Flagstaff, Pine Knoll, and Abbott also underwent power outages, with Bartlet, Day, and Foxcroft dorms experiencing shortages going into the morning. Amadeus Meinecke ’27, recounts how the fire alarm went off in his dorm and that power was still missing even when he woke up.
“Last night we had the fire alarms start and we all had to evacuate our dorm at 3:30 AM which was terrible because the sound was very loud. There was no light and the electricity cut off at 12am so it was a bit scary… [After that], I needed to charge my computer and phone but there was no power in my dorm so I started the day completely cut off from the power circuit,” said Meinecke.
Because the power outage lasted into the late morning for some academic buildings like Pearson Hall and Morse, many classes were either relocated or canceled. Catherine Carter, a teacher in the Classics department explained how she didn’t cancel class, and instead, adapted and held it in Paresky Commons temporarily.
“I was giving a test and I met my students in [Paresky] Commons. I had them get some breakfast and by the time they were finished, they got the power back on in Pearson and so we went back and they took the test as planned and were minimally disturbed. I taught a class in fourth period which carried on as normal and so did sixth… [We] appreciated that the Office of the Physical Plant came in and took care of everything, ” said Carter.
MC Post, Teaching Fellow for the History & Social Sciences Department, instead opted to give their third-period students a day off and similarly to Carter, moved their fifth period to take place in Paresky Commons. Knowing how unpredictable the Winter Term is, Post was ready for sudden changes in schedule.
“I gave my period three off, and then period five, we’re going to meet in the [Paresky] Commons. We have a trustee coming to visit, so I wanted to keep the opportunity for the students to get to know the trustee. We’re going to move some stuff around. It’s the winter term so teachers were told to have some flexibility because of Head of School Day in general, so I already had some room in this curriculum” said Post.
Because Samuel Phillips Hall and the OWHL were closed for the entire day, classes were mostly canceled for students. Sophia You ’26 from Day Hall explained how the morning was filled with both ups and downs, from dealing with uncharged devices to having multiple classes getting canceled.
“We [Day Hall] lost power around 11:30 PM. I’d say we didn’t get it back until this morning at 8:25 AM so nothing charged overnight which was annoying for going to classes today. But, also, I think it was nice because a lot of my classes got canceled so I just had a free day. I had one class today so it was kind of a blessing” said You.
Nishi Amin ’28, a day student from North Andover who frequently uses the OWHL to work, expressed the struggles that closing the OWHL presented its own challenges for her. She recalled how finding an alternate location proved to be difficult, especially during Thursday’s snowstorm.
“I have to walk all the way to Pan [Athletic Center] to do my homework because there’s not much else, I can’t go to the library, and there’s not that much room in Gelb or [another building]… I usually go home around nine after I finish all of my homework, but I’m probably gonna leave right after swimming and do my homework at home,” wrote Amin.
