Kelly Fang/File

Power was fully restored to all buildings on the UC Berkeley campus as of Friday morning after a Sept. 30 explosion near California Hall damaged underground power lines and left 11 buildings unable to connect to the campus’s power grid.

Most of the 11 buildings without power were connected to portable generators rented by the campus in the days after the explosion and were reconnected to the main power grid between Tuesday night and early Friday morning. The process of switching from the backup generators to the campus power grid left those buildings without power for up to six hours, said Christine Shaff, communications director for the campus’s facilities services department.

“It was a fairly straightforward process,” Shaff said. “We did schedule the switch-over in coordination with the building occupants. I think everybody was anxious to be off of the generators.”

One student was hospitalized in the explosion, which forced a campuswide evacuation and caused the campus to declare a state of emergency. The explosion occurred after a power outage campus officials attributed to damage from theft of copper wiring at an off-campus electrical facility. Power was restored to all but 11 buildings on campus the next day.

Dwinelle Hall was brought back onto the campus power grid Tuesday night. Three locations that had been without power since the explosion — Edwards Track, the campus cogeneration plant and Environmental Health and Safety — were restored Wednesday.

California Hall, Durant Hall and the Bancroft and Doe libraries were connected to the power grid Wednesday night. Haas Pavilion, Dwinelle Annex and the Alumni House were connected by early Friday morning.

According to Shaff, the delay in restoration occurred because maintenance workers and a “high-voltage team” needed time to assess the damage from the explosion, remove damaged equipment and test power lines to make sure they were safe.

“It’s not just repairing the damage,” Shaff said. “It’s also understanding what we needed to do.”

On Oct. 1, maintenance crews removed a damaged switchboard at the site of the explosion. Switchboards allow crews to switch between two lines of the campus power grid. With the two-line system, power can be delivered to buildings when only one line is operational, allowing crews to conduct maintenance without disrupting the flow of power.

According to Skip Ray, an accounts manager at Peterson Power, the company leased seven generators of five different sizes to UC Berkeley, ranging from 150 to 800 kilowatts. Generators can cost between a “couple hundred” to a “few thousand” dollars a day, Ray said.

Except for pending repairs to the electrical vault from which the Sept. 30 explosion originated, the restoration of the campus power grid represents a return to normalcy after the incident. Shaff estimates the caution tape around the vault will remain for “a few days.”

Chris Yoder covers crime. Contact him at cyoder@dailycal.org and follow him on Twitter @christiancyoder.

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Kore Chan/File

An ASUC Senate bill introduced Wednesday criticizes the UC Berkeley administration’s decision to hold the majority of classes on Oct. 1 after an explosion left most of campus without power the previous evening.

The bill, authored by Independent Campaign for Common Sense Senator Solomon Nwoche, calls on administrators to promptly inform students of class cancellations after emergencies. The bill will be discussed at an ASUC Senate committee meeting Monday night.

After an explosion near California Hall on the evening of Sept. 30, electrical crews worked through the night to bring power back to campus buildings.

At 5:30 a.m. on Oct. 1, campus officials notified students, faculty and staff that power had been restored to all but 11 buildings, including Dwinelle Hall.

Classes took place as normal in all buildings except those 11, to the dismay of many students who felt they had been inconvenienced by power outages in several campus residence halls the night before.

“Even best-case scenario, let’s say your assignment didn’t have any technology component — you were stuck reading in the dark,” Nwoche said regarding students living in the residence halls.

The bill, SB 27, lambastes the campus’s choice to hold most classes as usual, calling it an “irrational decision,” but also lauds Chancellor Nicholas Dirks’ acknowledgement that there was a lack of communication from campus administrators after the incident.

The bill’s text suggests implementing a campus policy whereby administrators inform students of class cancellations before 1 a.m. after an emergency. Nwoche said he would like the bill’s language to be amended to request that the announcement come within a seven- to eight-hour window after an emergency, with classes being automatically canceled after that time.

Claire Holmes, associate vice chancellor for public affairs, explained the challenges of pinning down parameters for campus emergency response.

“It is hard to dictate emergency situations because they are unpredictable and constantly evolving,” she said. Holmes does, however, agree that students and staff ought to be given as much notice as possible of class cancellations.

Both Student Action Senator Sahil Pandya and SQUELCH! Senator Grant Fineman support having a discussion about the campus’s response after the incident, but said they remain uncertain about the text of the bill itself.

“The bill comes from a very good place,” Fineman said. “It’s important in a big disaster to get information out to students quickly and efficiently, but I do understand that the administration was dealing with a lot of moving parts.”

CalSERVE Senator Briana Mullen said she would not vote for the current iteration of the bill.

“We need to be smart about when we use bills,” Mullen said. “If we don’t make policy in tandem with administrators, they are not going to respect it.”

ASUC President DeeJay Pepito said she plans to work with students and administrators to review campus outreach during emergency situations.

“The process is ongoing and continuously improving,” Pepito said in a text message forwarded from her chief of staff, Austin Pritzkat.

Contact Kimberly Veklerov at kveklerov@dailycal.org.

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Although the WarnMe alert system drew some criticism in 2011 after many did not receive notification about a shooting at Haas School of Business, the campus’s multiple warning systems appear to have been utilized effectively during Monday’s power outage and explosion, campus officials said.

Campus police and officials used nearly all emergency systems in place to respond to the events — including WarnMe, the campus siren-and-PA system and the emergency phone line, which played a looped message with updates on the situation. Messages were also posted on the campus public affairs website, Facebook and Twitter pages, according to campus spokesperson Janet Gilmore.

UCPD sent four messages via WarnMe, said UCPD spokesperson Lt. Eric Tejada.

After the explosion near California Hall about 6:40 p.m., a message went out at 6:50 p.m. telling recipients to evacuate campus immediately due to an emergency.

“We know that there will be situations where individuals maybe might get (WarnMe messages) late or not receive them,” Gilmore said. “We will be taking a close look at what worked and what needs to be improved.”

Gilmore encouraged students who did not receive text message alerts to update their information through the BearFacts website and choose text messaging as the preferred option for receiving emergency communication.

Senior Christophe Hansen-Estruch was studying at C.V. Starr East Asian Library when the campus initially lost power.

“There was this noise like a ‘bmf,’ and then all the lights went off,” he said.

After a few minutes of confusion, a library staff member went up each floor to inform students that there had been a power outage and that there was no immediate emergency, he said.

Hansen-Estruch also said he received an email from WarnMe, but because he did not sign up for text alerts, he received the warning much later.

UCPD used the campus PA system to send broadcasts instructing individuals to leave campus after the explosion occurred. Throughout the evening, police officers entered and checked campus buildings to ensure all individuals had been evacuated, Gilmore said.

The campus’s emergency systems effectively served their purpose, said UCPD Lt. Marc DeCoulode.

Although the residence halls did not need to be evacuated Monday night, the campus will work with city officials to find suitable areas for relocation in case the need arises in the future, said Amina Assefa, manager at the campus’s Office of Emergency Management.

“We would start looking for open spaces in the city of Berkeley and start directing people,” she said. “We would also use campus transportation services if we have to move people further away.”

Contact Jessie Lau at jlau@dailycal.org.

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Michael Drummond/Senior Staff

UC Berkeley received national media attention Monday night following a bizarre series of events that culminated with an explosion near California Hall and the swift evacuation of campus.

By midnight, the campus was eerily dark, empty except for the flashing lights of fire engines and the haze of lingering smoke.

A series of innocuous disruptions

It began with a campuswide power outage at 4:30 p.m.

Students in Doe Memorial Library, who were evacuated when the lights shut off and fire alarms were triggered, were surprised to find that students in Moffitt Library and other buildings were experiencing similar confusion.

“I figured I’d get in some last-minute cramming (when) all of the buzzers and fire alarms in the North Reading Room went off,” said Max Morton, a campus sophomore. “Everyone was looking around, clearly really confused. Then I headed over to Moffitt, and everyone’s pouring out of there too.”

Within 15 minutes, both UCPD and Berkeley Fire Department were responding to reports of black smoke at locations across campus. According to Acting Deputy Fire Chief Avery Webb, firefighters at Koshland Hall discovered a plume of smoke coming from a backup generator.

That was when the calls started pouring in, Webb said. BFD dispatchers, hearing reports of smoke clouds, strange odors and people trapped in elevators campuswide, quickly passed word on to crews across the city.

“The system was on the verge of being overwhelmed by calls coming in from different places,” Webb said.

By 5:15 p.m., Berkeley Fire Department was so overwhelmed with calls that officials requested crews from Alameda County Fire Department to cover duties at fire stations in the city, Webb said.

Meanwhile, a similar spectacle developed outside Sather Tower in response to the release of smoke from another underground generator. One of the backup generators, which automatically starts in the event of a widespread power outage, was running and emitting smoke, which is typical of the system, said UCPD officer Barry Boersma. UCPD, along with Berkeley Police Department and BFD, was present at the scene.

About 5:20 p.m., firefighters evacuated Latimer Hall after students and faculty smelled ammonia in the building. According to Webb, the chemical escaped into the building when a laboratory circulation fan shut down after the power outage, but concentrations were never high enough to cause serious harm.

“A small amount of ammonia can produce a large amount of odor,” Webb said. “Most of what was being done was precautionary.”

As responders began to stem the tide of stuck elevators, a lull in the action emerged about 6 p.m.

“It looked like things were winding down,” Webb said.

The big bang

About 6:40 p.m., the lull ended.

Officials at their makeshift command post on the west side of the Campanile turned abruptly at the sound of a large explosion originating from an electrical vault just downhill, according to UCPD Lt. Marc DeCoulode.

Campus sophomore Jennifer Han was walking past Wheeler Hall on her way home from a midterm review session when the explosion sent her and other students sprinting in the opposite direction.

“The first thing I thought was, ‘What the heck is going on?’ ” Han said. “I initially thought it was a bomb and just wanted to run away. As I was leaving, someone was yelling through a megaphone, but everyone kept walking towards the area.”

A fire engine waiting to respond to another call was parked just 30 to 40 feet away from the explosion, DeCoulode said. Four people sustained minor injuries from the blast, one of whom was taken to the hospital to be treated for minor burn injuries.

At the command post, DeCoulode and other leaders made a quick decision to evacuate the campus. A number of similar electrical vaults are spread across campus, and first responders were worried they would burst as well, he said.

Officers spent the rest of the night checking buildings for malfunctioning elevators and other problems, DeCoulode said.

The aftermath

UC Berkeley will now begin investigating the events that led up to the power outage and explosion, said campus spokesperson Dan Mogulof.

Authorities determined early on that the power outage was caused by damage from vandals attempting to steal copper ground wiring in a manhole a half-mile east of campus. Whether this is also related to the explosion is still unknown, Mogulof said.

An entry from the UCPD crime log shows a burglary of copper wire and other ground wires was reported on Sept. 17 at the Big C Trail.

UCPD Lt. Eric Tejada confirmed that this burglary is the incident officials believe is related to the outage and said that high-voltage wire was stolen.

Mogulof said the vandals had a sophisticated understanding of what they were doing due to their ability to locate the access point and the amount of pressure they were able to apply to the wiring.

“These are people who understand their illicit business and know where the access or weak points are of any electrical grid,” Mogulof said.

Another explosion occurred nearly three weeks ago in an underground high-voltage vault, causing a power outage in several buildings. At the time, officials said that the explosion, located near Evans Hall, was a result of construction. Mogulof said the campus has no reason to believe the two incidents are related.

However, the campus is “open to the possibility that there might be something systemic,” Mogulof said. “Just because that’s what we assessed at the time doesn’t mean we’re going to stick to that.”

Chase Schweitzer contributed to this report.

Contact Adrianna Dinolfo and Connor Grubaugh at newsdesk@dailycal.org.

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Carli Baker/Senior Staff

UPDATED 4:33 p.m. — Although power has been restored to most of UC Berkeley after an explosion and a subsequent campuswide evacuation, 11 buildings remain without power as of Tuesday afternoon.

Students should assume classes held in those buildings are canceled, according to a statement released by UC Berkeley. According to campus spokesperson Dan Mogulof, 113 classes were canceled today.

The nonoperational buildings include Alumni House, Bancroft Library, California Hall, Central Heating Plant, Doe Library, Durant Hall, Dwinelle Hall, Dwinelle Annex, Edwards Track (East and West areas), Haas Pavilion and the Office of Environment, Health & Safety facility.

Backup generators are being installed at Dwinelle Hall, Bancroft Library, Doe Library and California Hall, Mogulof said at a press conference Tuesday afternoon. The other seven buildings will remain off the campus grid until the campus has fully assessed the damage.

“We don’t want to reconnect it for fear that we may bring everything else crashing down again,” he said.

At an earlier press conference Monday, Mogulof reiterated that the power outage that occurred at 4:30 p.m. was caused by damage to cables caused by vandals who were attempting to steal copper crucial to the campus’s power system. However, he said whether this damage was the direct cause of the explosion is still being determined.

Mogulof called the damage to the wiring “extensive” and said it was much worse than officials had initially believed when discovered late last week.

He also said that the explosion, which occurred just outside California Hall about 6:40 p.m., happened when the team was bringing power back to campus.

The campus is taking steps to increase the security of the copper substation where the vandals damaged the wiring, Mogulof said. He added that the facility is within half-mile to a mile radius of the explosion.

“It was unprecedented,” Mogulof said. ”There wasn’t anything to suggest that we had that sort of vulnerability. We’re in a new world here where people are stealing copper out of the university’s electrical grid. We have to adapt to what the new normal looks like.”

Mogulof said that the robbers had a “highly sophisticated” understanding of where one could access the sort of copper found in the substation.

The vandals “chose a point that was secluded, that was not visible, that wasn’t regularly visited,” he said.

Officials assured members of the community it was safe to return to campus Tuesday morning in an email from Chancellor Nicholas Dirks. The email said that power to the majority of the campus buildings was restored Monday night using a “methodical approach to ensure that each building is safe to occupy.”

“Because of this method of restoration, the campus has a high level of confidence that the campus is safe,” the message said.

Mogulof said that the restoration is not a “one-stop deal” and that the campus will continue to monitor the situation.

ASUC President DeeJay Pepito posted a statement on Facebook acknowledging unease over the fact that most classes are still in session despite concerns for students’ mental and emotional well-being.

“Several people were injured from the explosion, many students were stuck in elevators for hours, campus libraries were closed, and several of the residence halls … were impacted by the power outage, all factors that produced a chaotic and stressful environment,” she said in the statement. “The uncertainties of safety made studying extremely difficult and the expectation from our University to resume with regular activity and retain properly under such unique high stress and anxiety is unacceptable.”

Pepito noted that she has been in contact with the UC Berkeley administration this morning and has asked Associate Dean of Students David Surratt to send psychologists from the Tang Center to the residence halls.

Students should check in with their academic departments for further information about classes and rescheduling, and employees who normally work in those buildings should check in with their supervisors about reporting to work, according to the statement from the campus.

UC Berkeley professor of economics Martha Olney said that while the building closures were an inconvenience, the campus did an efficient job of making alternate plans.

“I thought the classroom scheduling office was on top of things,” she said. “I appreciated their quick service, and this is good preparation for the (next) earthquake.”

Here is a Google Map pinpointing where the non-operational buildings are located:

View this map on Google Maps.

Adrianna Dinolfo and Lydia Tuan contributed to this report.
Sara Grossman is the executive news editor. Contact her at sgrossman@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @saragrossman.

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Kelly Fang/Senior Staff

Check out our photo gallery of the explosion here.

An explosion on the UC Berkeley campus near California Hall injured several people, prompting officials to declare a state of emergency and order an evacuation of the campus about 6:40 p.m. Monday evening.

Three people were treated on scene for injuries, and one was transported to a hospital with minor burn injuries, according to campus spokesperson Dan Mogulof. At least 20 people were stuck in elevators as a result of an earlier power outage but were freed by 9 p.m., Mogulof said.

The explosion appears to be related to vandalism discovered by the campus late last week, Mogulof said. Vandals were stealing or attempting to steal copper grounding wire from an electrical system not readily visible, and the damage appears to be more extensive than initially believed. The explosion occurred as engineers were restoring power after a campuswide outage about 4:45 p.m., Mogulof said.

The explosion originated in an underground vault beneath a road by California Hall near the center of campus, said UCPD Sgt. Andrew Tucker.

“At first, I was really scared because I thought the explosion was big enough to produce a shock wave,” said sophomore Jennifer Han, who was walking home from a midterm when the explosion happened. “You heard it first, and then there were flames.”

At least four ambulances, fire trucks and multiple police units responded to the incident.

An ammonia leak in Latimer Hall, likely related to the power failure, was contained by Berkeley Fire Department about 6:20 p.m., said UCPD Lt. Marc DeCoulode.

Daily Cal multimedia producer Miles Mathews captured the billowing fire after an explosion on the UC Berkeley campus.

After the explosion, officials instructed everyone to evacuate the campus through the north and west entrances. They also advised people to stay away from manholes on campus.

At 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday, campus officials announced that power had been restored to most buildings on campus and that most classes will meet as scheduled. Eleven buildings remain without power and are not operational: Alumni House, Bancroft Library, California Hall, Central Heating Plant, Doe Library, Durant Hall, Dwinelle Hall, Dwinelle Annex, Edwards Track (East and West areas), Haas Pavillion and EH&S Facility, according to the UC Berkeley public affairs website.

Students should assume classes are cancelled in these buildings for the day and should check in with departments to see if and when classes and events will be rescheduled, and employees in these buildings should check in with supervisors about reporting to work, the website said.

“We’re in uncharted territory,” Mogulof said at a press conference Monday night. “We’ve never seen anything like this before.”

Daily Californian online managing editor Seung Y. Lee took video footage of a plume of smoke erupting from campus as the explosion took place near Wheeler Hall.

Freshman Henry Rowswell described the explosion as a “fireball” that was as tall as California Hall.

Martina Baccari, a Berkeley High School student who was on campus at the time of the incident, said she felt heat in her face directly after the explosion.

Shortly after the power outage, smoke was seen rising from an old power generator near Bancroft Library that kicked in when power went out, said UCPD officer Barry Boersma. It is unclear whether the two incidents are related.

At 6:05 p.m., the campus sent out an alert through its emergency text message system canceling classes and shutting down lab operations for the rest of the day.

The outage affected buildings from Strawberry Canyon to University Hall, including the chancellor’s residence, said Christine Shaff, communications director for Facilities Services. Student housing Units 1, 2 and 3, Maximino Martinez Commons and Foothill also were affected.

The residence halls affected by the outage were being powered by generators Monday evening, Mogulof said. Although parts of buildings remained without power, students were still allowed in, he said.

The outage also affected Cal Dining services Monday evening. Foothill and Crossroads will remain open with limited service, but Cafe 3 and Clark Kerr Campus dining commons will be unaffected, according to the Cal Dining Facebook page.

“We got very, very lucky that there were no serious injuries,” Mogulof said.

UC Berkeley senior Ana Reyes took video footage of the explosion.

Staff writers Adrianna Dinolfo, Chloe Hunt and Chris Yoder contributed to this report. Executive News Editor Sara Grossman also contributed to this story.

Megan Messerly and Jeremy Gordon are news editors. Contact them at newsdesk@dailycal.org and follow the Daily Cal twitter page at @dailycal.

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Mira Nguyen/Staff

About 150 workers and students gathered on Sproul Plaza Wednesday afternoon to rally in support of workers’ and immigrants’ rights.

The rally began at noon and was followed by a protest in the streets surrounding the campus before ending outside California Hall. UC Berkeley’s May Day event coincides with other International Workers’ Day activities throughout the Bay Area that seek to improve conditions for workers and citizenship opportunities for immigrants.

“We need to say that this university belongs to the public,” said Hatem Bazian, a professor of Near Eastern studies who attended the rally. “It was built by us collectively … yet we have institutions and leadership that think they are on the board of directors of corporation A or B.”

Workers from multiple unions — including AFSCME 3299, a union representing health care and service workers, and UAW Local 2865, a union representing UC student workers — attended the rally.

Wednesday’s May Day rally comes in the midst of labor negotiations between AFSCME 3299 and the university.

“It’s all part of putting the pressure on UC to give us a just and fair contract,” said Sarah Leadem, an organizer for AFSCME 3299.

AFSCME recently scheduled a strike vote from April 30 to May 2 to bring attention to alleged patient-care violations and the elimination of hundreds of frontline care jobs. In a statement, Dwaine Duckett, UC vice president for systemwide human resources, said that the university is open to compromise but needs engagement from AFSCME leaders.

Amanda Armstrong, head steward for the UAW 2865 and a graduate student in rhetoric, said GSIs, readers and tutors are also entering into contract negotiations. Armstrong spoke to a crowd gathered outside California Hall about demands the union has, including a cap on class size, better wages and health benefits for student-workers and an end to discrimination in hiring in the workplace.

“Being a graduate student in the university, I do have a lot of benefits.” said Vreni Michelini, a graduate student in art practice who was a GSI in the fall. “But I also see and I live the struggle in the sense that even though I have two scholarships that’s almost paying for my tuition, I still got to have three jobs to just make it with the rent, food and everything else I have to pay.”

Supporters also rallied behind immigration reform.

“We have a broken immigration system, and there are people in our community who have been deported,” said City Councilmember Jesse Arreguin, who attended the rally. “We can no longer divide families and use (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement) as a way to try to suppress workers’ rights.”

Mitchell Handler covers academics and administration. Contact him at mhandler@dailycal.org and follow him on Twitter @mitchellhandler.

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On Friday, November 9, a tribute to veterans was held beside California Hall.

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Protestors gathered on campus in front of California Hall on March 12 to protest.  The protestors were asking Birgeneau to pressure the district attorney to drop the charges for those who were arrested on November 9th.

Gina Palefsky produced this video.

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Levy Yun/Staff

About 50 people gathered outside of California Hall at noon Monday to protest criminal charges filed by the district attorney’s office against protesters active in the Nov. 9 protests.

Protesters marched in a circle holding banners and chanting in unison, calling for the dissolution of the charges and hoping for support from the UC Berkeley administration.

“The silence from California Hall has been deafening,” said integrative biology professor Robert Dudley, who was sitting on the grass in front of the hall.

UC Berkeley students Ricardo Gomez, Zakary Habash and Ramon Quintero and associate English professor Celeste Langan face several charges, including resisting arrest and remaining at the scene of a riot, according to county criminal dockets.

Langan said four additional protesters have been charged but not arrested, including BAMN national organizer Yvette Felarca and three UC Berkeley graduate students — Amanda Armstrong, Jasper Bernes and Shane Boyle.

Additionally, UC Berkeley faculty members have posted an online petition calling for Chancellor Robert Birgeneau to request that the district attorney drop all charges against the campus protesters.  In a campuswide email last November, Birgeneau announced that the campus would be “granting amnesty from action under the Student Code of Conduct to all Berkeley students who were arrested and cited solely for attempting to block the police.”

UCPD was able to identify the additional protesters not arrested by reviewing videos that were posted online, according to UCPD Lt. Eric Tejada. He added that the evidence was then presented to the district attorney’s office, which determined that there was enough evidence to proceed forward with the case and file charges.

“What the case is about is failing to comply with an officer, or interfering with an officer, or assaulting an officer,” he said.

Gomez, one of those facing criminal charges, said that protests in front of California Hall will continue for the remainder of the week, or until Birgeneau releases a direct statement to the District Attorney’s office requesting all criminal charges against students be dropped. Protests are scheduled to take place at noon until Friday.

Staff writers Damian Ortellado and Amruta Trivedi contributed to this report.

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