Carnegie Mellon University

The Piper

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August 25, 2011

What a Week: Power Outages, Flooding and Earthquakes; Register for CMU Alert

What a week it’s been on the Pittsburgh campus! After electricity in several buildings went out last Friday morning when Duquesne Light lost power to one of its Oakland feeders, a severe storm dropped nearly two inches of rain in one hour later that afternoon, causing virtually every campus building to experience water damage in their lower levels. Suffering the most significant damage were Margaret Morrison Carnegie Hall, Newell-Simon Hall and the FMS building.

As clean-up efforts from the flood were continuing on Tuesday, mild tremors were felt on campus from a 5.8 magnitude earthquake in Virginia. There were no reports of damage to campus, but the tremors did cause the university to send an official alert to everyone on the Pittsburgh campus.

Register for CMU Alert:


EHS LogoThese events serve as a reminder to register for CMU Alert, the university’s emergency notification service, which sends voice and/or text messages to registered phones in the event of a campus emergency. You can register for the service online by going to https://my.cmu.edu/portal/site/main/alert. Your contact information will be treated confidentially. You will be contacted by the CMU Alert service only if there is an incident/event that threatens public safety or during tests of the system in the spring and fall semesters.