After Hurricane Isabel, power was knocked out of many parts of the region, including AU satellite campuses Tenley and Park Bethesda. The power outages led to no electricity for several days, no Internet and the closing of the Tenley dining hall. Now that electricity has returned, we can look back on how we acted during the hurricane.
Since the D.C. government is currently doing a performance assessment into D.C.'s and Pepco's behavior during and after the storm, it is appropriate to assess AU's behavior as well.
It isn't much of a stretch to say that life without electricity is no fun. Our society's dependence on power came to light (no pun intended) at Tenley, which quickly turned into a state of near-lawlessness during the storm.
At Tenley - which didn't get full power restored until Friday (although a generator was there last Sunday) - students broke residence hall policy by responding to the dark by lighting candles. Other students broke rules in a less pragmatic sense. As of press time, there are anecdotal reports of students drinking alcohol and having sex in the hallways while the electricity was out.
Perhaps Tenley residents could have learned from the behavior of New Yorkers during this summer's massive blackout. People in New York took their blackout in stride, unlike the Tenley residents who took the opportunity to turn the hallway into a party zone. Unlike New Yorkers, some Tenley residents reacted to chaos instead of responding to it. However, the problems at Tenley do not fall squarely on the residents' shoulders. AU did not send flashlights to Tenley until Saturday, even though Isabel knocked out Tenley's power on Thursday night. Perhaps students at this satellite campus would not have lit candles in their rooms, against University policy, had they had flashlights. Although Tenley residents' behavior is still inexcusable, it probably wouldn't have been as bad if the University had a quicker response time.
The fact that it took so long to get flashlights to Tenley makes it seem that AU did not prepare for electricity to disappear. AU cannot say that Isabel was a surprise - we knew for a week that the storm was on its way and would very likely arrive here. Those in charge should have adequately prepared for the damage Isabel could have inflicted on all of its areas; not just main campus, but also Tenley, Park Bethesda and the Washington College of Law.
This behavior also speaks to a larger issue at AU. Those of us on main campus tend to ignore Tenley's very existence, regarding it as little more than the shuttle stop before the Metro.
This attitude is apparent in Student Confederation President Nick Terzulli's statement on Wednesday: "It hasn't been on the radar." The SC did nothing to help Tenley residents out and had few, if any, plans to help Tenley campus.
This tendency to allow an entire satellite campus of students to remain off the radar is something that should certainly be remedied in the future. Whether on campus or off, we are all students of AU and should be treated equally.
