Power Outages

Date: July 13, 2002

This past week has been difficult for all of us. We have suffered six major power outages over the course of the week. Virtually everyone on the Medford-Somerville campus has been inconvenienced. Our summer students have had their studies disrupted. Our faculty, especially our scientists, have had their scholarship jeopardized. Our staff has had to work without computers, air conditioning, telephones and lighting.

We are not alone. A significant portion of Medford has been affected by outages resulting from the simultaneous failure of two major Massachusetts Electric underground cables that bring power into the city.

What went wrong? The two cables exist to provide redundancy in case one fails. Failure occurs when the insulation breaks somewhere underground, thus shorting the circuit. The failure must be located, the cable dug up, and new cable spliced in. At the start of the week we were assured that the failures were routine and would be repaired quickly. By Wednesday morning it became clear that the problem was more systemic.

When we experienced the first longer outage on Wednesday, we moved quickly to secure additional emergency generating capacity. A few of our buildings, Barnum for example, have built-in emergency generators that kick in whenever power is interrupted. These generators exist to provide short-term protection for laboratories that house temperature sensitive experiments. Other buildings have emergency back up lighting but not emergency generator capacity. Our ability to hook up generators to specific buildings is limited by our own internal campus distribution system. Not all buildings can be isolated from the distribution system, which is necessary in order to hook up a generator.

When it became clear after discussions with the Mayor, state regulatory officials, and Mass Electric that Mass Electric's problems were far more extensive than originally disclosed, we began scouring the east coast for a generator and transformer large enough to serve the entire campus. We located the equipment yesterday. Some of the equipment had to be shipped in from out of state. It arrived Thursday night about 6PM, and our staff worked throughout the night with outside contractors to bring it on line.

We are currently generating all of our own power to operate the campus. The balance of Medford is being supplied by Mass Electric with a fragile, patchwork system. Mass Electric cannot put either Tufts or the August Busch Distribution Center back on the grid because we are the two largest electricity users in the city. The temporary system cannot carry our combined load without shutting down.

We can sustain our current operation provided that we continue to moderate our consumption of electricity. Excess usage may jeopardize the system. I urge you to continue to conserve electricity by going without air conditioning and turning off all unnecessary lights and appliances. Let's pray for cool weather.

I recognize that things may become uncomfortable if it gets hot. Until we have full power back, leave your ties at home.

Mass Electric is in the process of replacing the defective cables. Until the cables are replaced, we may have to continue running the campus using emergency power only. We will have better information by Monday from the city, the state, and Mass Electric regarding how long it will take to restore full electrical service to the campus. Until the cables are replaced, we are at the mercy of a few generators that must be periodically shut down to be maintained. We will notify the campus in advance of any scheduled maintenance and will try to schedule it at hours that will minimize disruption to campus activities.

We have learned a lot this past week. These truly have been extraordinary times – the utility equivalent of the perfect storm. We must do better in the future in planning and responding to emergencies, and we will. I have asked for a full review of our emergency procedures not just for dealing with power outages but for other types of emergencies as well. Faculty, students, and staff will all participate in this review.

Many of our colleagues have been working extraordinary hours trying to address these problems that are not of our making. Those responsible for the maintenance of our facilities take great pride in their work. They understand how important the maintenance of our infrastructure is in supporting both our teaching and research. They are doing their best under very difficult circumstances.

Thank you very much for your patience and understanding. We will be back to you with updated information as we learn more.