Southeast officials met with students of Dearmont Hall’s C wing on Thursday, Nov. 17, to discuss the plans for the wing’s future repairs.

During fall break, power will be shut off to all of Dearmont from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Nov 22 to reconnect B wing to its new transformer and begin the process to get C wing updated to prevent future power failures.

On Aug. 29, the B wing suffered a major electrical failure after an electrical panel failed, damaging the transformer that runs both B and C wings of Dearmont, resulting in 51 students having to relocate to other residence halls as the wing initially was believed to take 14 to 16 weeks to repair.

Those in C wing were told to cut power consumption in half, and to not use laundry machines or microwaves to keep the transformer for C wing from suffering the same fate as that of B wing.

Now, B wing is expected to be reopened by Dec. 5, according to Dr. Kendra Skinner, director of Residence Life, and Chris Miller, interim assistant director for Facilities and Operations.

With B wing close to being back online and displaced students being allowed to return, the attention of Facilities Management and Schneider Electric, the contractor working on Dearmont’s repairs, now turns to C wing to begin its needed repairs.

“The repairs that will be done in C wing will replicate those done in B wing,” Miller said.

Starting Nov. 28, classes will begin for the final three weeks of the semester.

Air Conditioning units in the rooms will be shut off. Students were told not to plug in the unit to outlets not meant for the units, because doing so potentially could cause a power failure to the entire wing, setting the repair process back.

With temperatures now warmer than they typically are for this time of year, students who feel their room is too warm are told to use a fan, open a window or put in a work order with Facilities Management if the heat should become excessive.

Also beginning Nov. 28 and lasting till Dec. 8, contractors will be entering rooms each day from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. to begin drilling for new wiring.

Those in rooms numbered 05, 06, 11 and 12 on each of the three floors can expect more work to be done than others.

“Some rooms will vary time-wise in long it takes to get wire repairs done, some could be a few minutes and some a few hours,” Miller said.

Residence Life staff members will be present during the days contractors go into the student’s rooms to make repairs to ensure safety of the students’ belongings. The schedule of whose room will be worked on has been given to C wing residents.

From Dec. 9 to 14, conduits and wiring will be installed in each of three floors hallways, well into finals week.

“This is the one time we expected to get everything done to prevent delays into spring semester … we wanted to make this as inconvenient as possible,” Skinner said.

Skinner also said an attempt will be made during finals week to keep noise levels to a minimum to not get in the students’ way of studying.

C wing’s power will be completely cut off during winter break to finish repairs and reopen the wing for a target date of Jan. 13.

Officials are confident this schedule presented will get life at Dearmont Hall back to normal and the building fully upgraded for next semester and future semesters at Southeast.