By Virginia Thomas
News Assistant
The black cords slither over his desktop, zapping life to his many electronic devices. One power strip steals life from another power strip, which is fed by a third power strip, in a tangled knot he affectionately refers to as “Medusa.” Whether he knows it or not, this anonymous freshman Dorm 7 resident is committing the same violation of the Uniform Fire Code (UFC) of Los Angeles County that caused an electrical fire in Dorm 16 Sept. 9.
The room containing the Dorm 7 fire hazard was one of 34 dorm rooms recently surveyed by the Graphic, and was one of the 11 found to be breaking at least one UFC rule.
When Pepperdine’s campus was built in 1972, “there were not computers and there was not the same support technology that you see now, that’s seen in every dorm room,” said Robert McKelvy, deputy director for Public Safety. Thus, the lower campus dorms were built to support the technology of the time.
Every dorm room in the suite residence halls has three “plug-in” fixtures, with two outlets in each. Three outlets per person, in contrast to 12 outlets per person available in Drescher campus honors dorms, is not always enough to safely support all the electronic devices that college students bring to campus these days. The list includes but is not limited to refrigerator/microwaves, TVs, VCRs and DVD players, video game systems, stereos, computers, printers, lamps, cordless telephones, alarm clocks, fans, cell phone chargers, hair curlers, hair straighteners and blow dryers. When they multiply several of the above by two, (one for each roommate), and the average pair of “roomies” end up with several dangerous electricity habits.
Many behaviors that could lead to overloading the outlets were found in the rooms surveyed. Students were running power strips off power strips, and using unapproved surge protectors and tri-outlet plastic splitters. They also were not dispersing “heavy usage” devices (microwaves, TVs,) to plugs around the room, and were leaving devices plugged in while not in use. Also, 10 of the dorm rooms visited used extension cords as permanent wiring fixtures, which is forbidden by UFC.
“I want to know where they want us to have our TVs, because if you have your desk full of your computer and printer and phone, then where are you supposed to put everything else if you can’t have an extension cord?” said Kourtney Stepke, a sophomore resident of Dorm 14. Stepke was found to be breaking the rules with a double whammy: a power strip plugged into an extension cord which was plugged into another power strip. And, she’s not too worried about it.
“I don’t think they enforce the extension cord thing, because people have them all over and I haven’t seen a rule written anywhere about it,” Stepke said. “I haven’t seen anybody written up for having an extension cord.”
Melia Smith in Dorm 16 echoed the sentiment of not seeing written rules about electrical outlet use.
“Nobody knew you couldn’t plug power strips into power strips,” Smith said. “They didn’t tell us that when we moved in.”
Smith lives one suite away from the site of the Sept. 9 fire. Her dorm mate caused a small fire inside the wall when she drew too much power and the breaker failed to trip. A wire caught fire, but was promptly extinguished by DPS turning off the electricity. Only smoke, not flames from the fire, spread outside the wall. The girl, who wished to remain anonymous, was running a power strip off another power strip when the fire occurred.
The Residential Advisors and Student Advisors were given general fire safety training, but according to Darcy Hickey and Adrienne Jones, the RA and SA of Dorm 6, they weren’t instructed to tell their residents about the outlet dangers until after the fire happened.
“We went through two weeks of training, eight hours a day, so it was a lot. To my memory, I don’t remember them telling us anything about it being a fire hazard,” Jones said.
McKelvy said fires can occur when too much power is demanded of an outlet, and the breaker doesn’t trip and shut off the way it’s intended to. Both the breakers themselves and surge protectors approved by Underwriters Laboratories (UL) should cause the tripping, he said. Students are encouraged to use only UL-approved surge protectors, not simple power strips with no ability trip.
Though they were installed in 1972, Pepperdine Fire Captain Cash Reed said the breakers “should be very dependable,” because Facilities Management and Planning inspects them and makes sure they function.
McKelvy admitted that some students don’t use UL approved devices, some use extension cords and have other risky electricity habits. But he said “for the most part I think the fire code is being applied reasonably … if it wasn’t, then we would have breakers that would be tripped all the time.”
He also said the first or second time the power is turned off in a dorm from the breaker tripping, an inquiry would be made about whether the power source was adequate for the devices running. If the resident is found to be using too much power, they’ll be informed.
Allie Evans, a freshman in Dorm 16, said, “Our electricity is constantly being turned off, mainly when girls are trying to get ready for their sorority events … as far as I know, we haven’t had anybody come lecture us about it.”
Evans was running two power strips in her room, with one plugged into the other.
McKelvy said if somebody violates the fire code and creates a dangerous situation, fire could occur in any building, not just dorms. But, he doesn’t think the dorms are in imminent danger of fire.
“If there was, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now. I’d be picking up the phone and calling our fire inspector and saying there’s a concern in this particular area, and there would be some follow-up with facilities management,” he said.
McKelvy also said that in his 20 years of working here, he recalls the Sept. 9 incident as the only electrical fire caused by multiple devices plugged into the same outlet.
To ensure fire safety, McKelvy said Public Safety makes sure routine maintenance is done, does annual safety inspections of all facilities, and is notifying the campus population of fire safety issues.
McKelvy is not aware of plans to install more outlets in the dorms, but, “If there comes a time when a student or a portion of the population says ‘you know what? I’ve exhausted my power sources within my dorm because now I’ve got a CD player, a VCR, a TV, and I’m finding out that we’re tripping breaker switches left and right,’ at that time there would be probably somebody at the administrative level that would say OK, this is an administrative priority to expand this type of power source in this particular area,” he said.
October 30, 2003