Classes were interrupted at Fresno City College and eventually cancelled on Oct 9 after a cat crawled into the circuit breaker housing causing a campus-wide blackout. Power went out all over the campus on the west side of the railroad tracks at approximately 1:10 pm.
At 1:43 President Ned Doffoney met with Vice President of Academic Affairs Tony Cantu, Vice President of Student Affairs Robert Fox and Director of College Activites Gurdheep Sihota and the decision was made to send all students home and to secure the campus. Staff would remain to help make sure students evacuated campus safely and would then leave themselves. President Doffoney commented “We want to make sure the students are safe. That’s our first priority.”
Staff members and faculty went door-to-door checking rooms and informing students that classes would be cancelled for the remainder of the day. Sihota called together the student government to help make large signs to post around the campus.
The Fresno police department and campus police used megaphones in their cars to inform students and helped direct traffic for the multitudes of students leaving the campus. Health Sciences and the district office on the east side of the railroad tracks still had power. Sihota used a copier in the district office to make fliers which were distributed on all classroom and building doors.
Several disabled students were reported to be stuck on the second floor of various buildings. The fire department was called to assist in carrying wheelchair bound students downstairs. An ambulance came as well to make sure that proper equipment was available for a student on a respirator who had been stranded on the second floor of the Social Science building.
At approximately 2:15 p.m. the campus had been almost completely emptied of the 15,000 students present at the time and President Doffoney received an estimate that power would take at least four-six hours to restore. The apparent cause of the outage was a trip in the circuit breaker caused by a cat which had gotten into the breaker by unknown means. When asked how the evacuation went President Doffoney said “It went very smoothly. Everyone understood their jobs and went right to work.”
Brian Speece, Associate Vice chancellor of Business and operations, said that a cat had gotten into the area housing the circuit breaker through a door that had been left open. Why it was open was unknown. Speece would not comment on what would be done as far as inquiries saying that it was a personnel issue.
Blaine Harmon, a maintenance technician, explained that when the cat entered the circuit breaker area it got between two breakers connecting two different phases of the current which created an arc (a line of electricity between two conductors, similar to lightning) which electrocuted the cat and tripped the breaker, causing the outage. Harmon also commented that there was no collar on the cat and that all the maintenance workers were sorry it had died and that they hoped it was no one’s pet.
Maintenance workers removed the cat and used a contact solution to remove carbon deposits from the breaker. Harmon said “We need to remove the carbon before we can test it. Carbon is a conductor. If we start it up without removing [the carbon] it would cause another arc.”
Once the carbon was removed Gary Bettencourt from AC Electric tested the breaker to see if it would turn back on. He told Speece that it would be ok to work for awhile but that he felt that to be safe it would be better to replace it.
The general attitude among students regarding cancelled classes was a positive one. One student was heard to say “I hope it happens again on Thursday, then I won’t have to take my quiz.”
Paul Gilmore’s History 12 class decided to move out to the grassy area in front of the Business education Building until the campus was evacuated. Sabreen Brar stated “It’s very inconvenient, especially for the short term classes. They end next Friday.” Gilmore said that the loss of class time due to the outage for his short-term class would be the equivalent of a regular class missing a full week.
John Hall, 24 of Madera, sat at a table studying before going to work. He returned to campus after getting lunch to find the power out and classes cancelled. “All of my classes were done for the day. I usually stay here and study before work.” He was disappointed to find the library closed. “I work nearby,” he said. “I have to take off at 3:00 so it would be a waste to go home.”
