A campus-wide power outage suspended classes for more than an hour Thursday morning after a delivery truck struck a utility pole at an intersection near the Ammerman campus.
Suffolk police said they responded to a 911 caller who reported that the truck struck a utility pole at the corner of Hettys Path and South Coleman Road at 8:44 a.m. There were no reported injuries.
Some students said they were confused about when to return to class due to conflicting messages from school officials.
According to an email sent out at 9:48 a.m. by Ammerman Executive Dean Irene Rios, classes and activities were suspended until 12 p.m. due to “large sections” of the campus being impacted by the outage. Students and staff were instructed to monitor their emails for updates.
A second email was sent at 10:43 a.m. alerting students that classes would resume at 11 a.m. With the small window in between the update and class time, many students did not make it to class.
Some students also complained that Public Safety officers mistakenly said classes were canceled for the day.
“I heard a bunch of conflicting stories, so I went home,” CJ Pabisz, 18, said.
Christina Craig, 20, was in her 9:30 a.m. math class when the power went out. “I stayed [on campus] because they said in the email that classes might continue,” she said, adding that she felt it “a waste of time” to wait for updates as PSEG LI restored service.
A Public Safety officer said, “We’re not able to comment on this” when contacted by phone regarding the incident.
