This editorial represents the opinion of The Bona Venture staff.
When turning on the news or using the Internet, it is impossible to avoid witnessing the devastation brought about by Hurricane Sandy.
Sandy’s current death toll at press time it 74, according to an Nov. 1 New York Daily News article. Every death is a tragedy, but thankfully the toll isn’t consistent with the severity of the storm. It could have been much worse.
Evacuations and enlisting help from first responders were just some of the preparations made to ensure people weren’t as affected as they could have been.
Luckily, the only thing Sandy gave the St. Bonaventure community was some high winds and rain. However, we were prepared for much worse.
In an act of prevention, a very detailed notice board was released this past Monday with instructions for power outages, guidelines for when driving becomes unsafe and safety planning tips for everything from saving your course work to emergency lighting.
If the predicted horrors of Sandy did come to fruition at Bonaventure, ARAMARK had enough food to sustain students for 72 hours, an alternative water supply would be made available and accommodations would be made for students living off-campus, according to the notice board.
In situations like this, being uninformed about what is happening and not knowing what is coming next can be absolutely terrifying. Thankfully, this wasn’t the case at Bona’s. We were continually updated about the storm, whether it was through emails, the campus phone, emergency text alerts or updates provided by the Cattaraugus County Office of Emergency’s Facebook page.
When looking at images of Sandy’s devastation, you see water everywhere. However, the majority of it is unsafe to drink. If Bonaventure had suffered a loss of power, the same issue would have been prevalent.
“If the outage disables the town’s water pumping station, potable (drinking) water will not be available from faucets and showers,” according to the notice board. In this case every student would be issued a gallon of water. A clean water supply would have been essential when waiting out the effects of the storm, so it is very important that provisions were made.
With approximately 2,000 undergrad students, gathering supplies for this many is no easy feat.
During natural disasters such as this, people tend to forget simple things that could have major consequences. When it gets dark at seven o’clock in the evening and you are without power, it is easy to light a match to burn a candle without thinking of the dangerous consequences. The notice board reminded students about how lighting candles would not only be unsafe, but it would also be against fire code regulations.
That wasn’t the only helpful reminder that the notice board provided. It also reminded students to fill their cars with gas and withdraw money from ATMs while they could, as they would not have the chance if power outages occurred.
The Bonaventure community was extremely fortunate Hurricane Sandy did not give us her worst, but students should take comfort in knowing if she did, we would have been ready.
