On Oct. 16, 2023, Moorpark College experienced a campus-wide blackout, starting roughly at 9 a.m. and ending around 11:10 a.m. Power went completely out before generators came online providing auxiliary lighting, with most major facilities still without power.
The beginning of the blackout marked a period of confusion, with students, faculty and classified staff waiting for directives from administration. Many students were impacted by this immediately. For example, a computer science class in LLR 126 was taking a final in their computer lab when the power went out, with the professor having to reschedule the exam.
Other students, such as Moorpark College dual enrollment student Marnie Stern, were impacted by the disruption in their day, having planned to come to campus for a specific purpose.
“I was sitting in the office here doing homework,” said Stern. “The power went out, but we have a generator and it came back on right away. But I had [a college] class at 10, but I went up to campus and the professor was outside and told me it was canceled and I had to walk all the way down.”
This seemed to be a recurring sentiment, with multiple students being turned away from classrooms and other facilities, such as the library, as they arrived on campus before being informed of the outage.
Some professors, including Moorpark College English Department Chair Sydney Sims, were able to still hold class; not turning away students who had already arrived at their appointed time, and with the backup lights on, felt they could still conduct their coursework.
“When I got to campus, the blackout had already happened,” said Sims. “My classroom had one light on, an emergency light, so with the door open, it was really quite light. So I said, ‘I don’t care, we’ll have class’ and everybody showed up, I wasn’t going to turn them away. But a few minutes into class everybody got this text that said ‘blah blah blackout, class is canceled’ and I thought well…here we are. And then literally five seconds after that went out the lights came back on. So I’m glad we powered through the initial blackout period.”
The initial email informing students of the campus closure went out at 10:36 a.m. saying that classes and campus are closed until 5 p.m., with the intention of another update coming at 2 p.m. However, power came back to campus shortly after, and at 11:24 a.m. another email went out informing everyone that campus was now open again, with evening classes resuming at 5 p.m.
Although the campus was open, many campus offices were closed, with staff heading home once the initial email went out. The library and Fountain Hall offices were all closed, but many offices, like Extended Opportunity Programs and Services, re-opened, along with the bookstore.
“The outage mostly just gave me some leeway time to work,” said Marisol Jimenez, a student worker at the EOPS office. “I came in after the blackout happened, but I came in and we have things to do here and we’re fully open now.”
Although the blackout inconvenienced many, such as students and workers who drove to campus for the sole purpose of attending a class or to work, many were able to leverage the time to get additional work or studying done or to catch up on assignments and tasks that may have piled up.
Although an unplanned event, the outage elicited a swift response from both staff and students, who navigated the situation until official guidance was provided. Despite the inconvenience, it underscored the resourcefulness and collective effort within the college, emphasizing the importance of well-defined protocols and preparedness in managing unforeseen circumstances.
