Merritt College Update—Power/Connectivity

Good evening, Merritt Community.

I am writing to provide an update regarding the power, phone, and internet outage issues we have experienced this past week. I left campus a short time ago and we have yet to have power restored to the P, Q, and R buildings. Rosendin Electric and the District Chief Engineer are working tirelessly (including through this weekend) to get those buildings up and running as soon as possible. Conservatively speaking, we probably are looking at the middle of next week to get them going.

The rest of the campus (with the exception of the Childcare Center and the D, E, and F buildings) appear to have power and the internet back up (thank you Antoine Mehouelley and Patricia Rom for your assistance with that today…I really appreciate it). Once we get power into the P, Q, and R buildings next week, the internet and phone connectivity will return to those areas as well.

Given the extensive damage sustained to the electrical panels that control the power to the Childcare Center and the D Building, it is likely that those area will be without power for some time (I don’t have enough information at this point to set a precise timeline). That means that we will need to accommodate the children at another site (perhaps Laney), and move Latitude high school (our renters) into other classrooms on campus. The MLK Center will obviously be impacted as well, and it is unclear whether the E and F buildings will be brought online any sooner.

My apologies for the long email but it has been quite a day trying to sort everything out, and I want to be as transparent as possible. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

Take care and stay safe this weekend.

David
David M. Johnson, Ph.D.
President
Merritt College