Power Outage Update: Oct. 4

To SMU students, faculty, staff and parents:

SMU classes have resumed and we thank all those involved in bringing our campus back online and everyone else for your continued patience. Over the course of the past 24 hours, we have received several questions about the cause of the outage and the University response and would like to provide an update.

University technicians are studying the diagnostic information from our electrical systems to identify the specific cause of the outage and we will share the results as soon as the information is available. As we bring the campus back to full capacity we are discovering occasional spaces still experiencing power or cooling issues.  We encourage those reports to be directed to our Support Center at 214-768-7000.  We will then document the issues and work to have those issues addressed as quickly as possible.

The power outage occurred at 4:08 p.m. Tuesday and the University’s emergency team immediately formed to assess and respond to the outage.  University decisions had to be made in a very compressed period of time while gathering information on when the outage might end.

To address possible safety issues uniquely related to multi-story residence halls, SMU made the decision to relocate students until power could be restored in the buildings. The decision to relocate students had to be made before the University was able to activate, on short notice, the pre-arranged shelter agreement with our gracious neighbors at Highland Park United Methodist Church.

Sharing information through our usual communication channels of emails, social media, and web messaging was compounded by the lack of power, spotty wi-fi and downed servers. Our best means of communication to the campus community in the event of an SMU emergency is through our automated “SMU ALERT” text/phone/email distribution system. We encourage all students, faculty and staff to register their cell phone numbers in the system at my.smu.edu and encourage parents to register for the “SMU ALERT” system by texting the word PARENTS to 888777.

We apologize for the inconvenience.  The University is committed to finding the cause of the outage, preventing a recurrence, and continuing to upgrade our methods of communication in an emergency.  In addition, with the guidance of SMU Provost Steven C. Currall our faculty is working to accommodate the needs of affected on-campus students by postponing tests and assignments scheduled for today.

Thank you, again.