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what a difference a few days makes after dealing with the worst
icestorm our area has seen in many years today it's sunny and warm
and that's great news because Elon's amazing physical plant crews are able to
keep working hard to clean up broken branches and make other repairs
and as of today the power is on for the entire campus
the big push now is to prune off broken and hanging branches and make other
repairs as necessary
in areas surrounding Elon, Duke Energy crews continue to work to restore
electricity
to homes that are still without power it is a massive job and we are thankful
for their efforts
it will likely be a few more days before the power is back on for everyone
in the meantime we're making every effort to assist students who live off
campus
providing them with access to food warm showers and a place to stay until the
powers back on
if you weren't on campus last Friday it's hard to imagine how difficult
things were
about eighty percent of the power in Alamance County was out
including a large part of the Elon campus
conditions were dangerous with falling ice and lambs
the county was under a state of emergency thankfully
we came through all this without any major injuries
instead what we saw was an incredible spirit of teamwork in patience
students who had electricity took in their friends who had none
physical plant crew members were joined by Student Life staff
food service staff and those from many other departments to ensure that
everyone was safe and as comfortable as we could make them under the
circumstances
we had our Moseley center staffed around the clock in we housed about 30 students
there Saturday night
I especially want to make note that many of the faculty and staff members who
pitched in on campus were facing power outages and significant damages to their
own homes
we owe a special debt of gratitude to those loyal
Elon employees and I know many Elon parents will want to join me in
expressing thanks for those efforts
I also want to thank parents for their patience and understanding of the
immense
challenges we were dealing with on campus you may have seen the photo of
the large oak tree that fell
on the William Henry Belk Pavilion in our academic village
it was a shame to lose that beautiful tree
and repairs to the building will take many weeks we've made arrangements to
relocate classes
and faculty offices from that building the storm hit just as we were welcoming
six hundred prospective students and their families to campus for fellows
weekend
and true Elon fashion the admissions office work with faculty to coordinate
an alternative plan for saturday's events
and for those students who are not able to reach campus there are special
arrangements to complete your fellows application
contact the Admissions Office if you have any questions
if you are a member of next fall's class who made it to Elon on Saturday
we hope you saw the spirit that makes Elon a special place
and we hope you'll come back to campus again soon to look around
when we aren't in a state of emergency this week
Elon celebrates Founders Day and this one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary
it's somehow fitting that we face some adversity just before the celebration
and that's part of our history we're resilient
it's in our DNA we persevere
thank you to everyone at Elon
students faculty and staff
who helped us weather this storm