Howard Plaza Towers Residents Face a Week-Long Power Outage

A dark hallway in Howard Plaza Towers is lit only by a single window at the end of the hall.  (Devon Mooring/101 Mag.)

Wednesday, Sept. 18 started like any other day for Howard Plaza Towers residents—except for the unusually cold water. 

“I woke up and there was no hot water. And I’m like ‘Ok the water’s cold no biggie,’ but then a day went by and the water was still cold and I was like, ‘What is happening?’” said Mikayla Eatmon, a Resident Assistant (R.A.) in East Towers dormitory. 

What initially seemed like a minor inconvenience soon turned into a week of cold showers, dark hallways, and unbearably hot dorm rooms.

According to an email from Howard University’s Physical Facilities Management team, the issue began when a contractor working on a demolition between W Street and Barry Place accidentally struck a Potomac Electric Power Company (PEPCO) electrical feeder. This feeder lies beneath the site of Howard University’s future Medical Office Building. The damage caused power outages in five campus buildings, including the East and West Towers residence halls.

While backup generators restored partial power to the Towers, it wasn’t enough to run elevators, laundry facilities, air conditioning or water heaters. Hallways were dimly lit with emergency lighting. East Towers resident Ananya Hota recalled the challenges of the outage.

“We lost air conditioning, and mind you, D.C. is hot and humid and the past two weeks were exceptionally hot so losing AC was a big deal,” Hota said. 

For students like her, another difficulty was navigating the 10-story building without elevators.

“I live on the 10^th floor of East Towers, so while it is not too bad for me to go downstairs. If I leave something or forget something in my room, that’s 20 flights of stairs at least. So that kind of limited my mobility,” she added.

Frustrated, students took to social media to document their experiences, sharing posts like this one:

https://www.instagram.com/p/DAW-oitNo6B/?img_index=1

A student provided a video of a dark hallway in Howard Plaza Towers lit by an emergency exit sign. (Courtesy/ Fizzhoward Instagram)  

Many students felt Howard could have done more to assist them during this difficult time. 

“Some things you just can’t help, but communication could’ve been better,” said Eatmon. 

She noted how slow updates from Residence Life managers to building managers and R.A.s made it difficult to keep students informed as power fluctuated during repair efforts.

Residents were particularly dissatisfied with the university’s response to the heat. 

“Howard didn’t make it easy on any of us,” Hota said, adding that while fans were eventually provided, they should have been distributed sooner. “I was fortunate enough to have access to a fan but I know those who didn’t have a fan didn’t get a fan from Towers until the very end of the power outage.”

For many upperclassmen, like Eatmon, the situation was nothing new. 

“I’m a senior, so I feel like I’ve experienced a lot of things similar just being at Howard,” she said.

Since the initial outage, new generators have restored power to the East and West Towers, though PEPCO is still working to repair the damaged electrical feeder. Howard University has released a statement to Towers residents, indicating that the Office of the Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer will be in touch with students regarding any losses or expenses they incurred due to the outage.