Farmville Police Department (FPD) are investigating a single-car crash that resulted in the Longwood Landings losing power overnight on Aug. 20. FPD have identified Michael Aaron Cook, 28, of Burkeville, Va. as the cause of the accident when he lost control of his vehicle, crashing into the transformer that controls the power of the northwest building of the landings.
At approximately 9:37 p.m., Cook was driving his 2014 Ford Fiesta south on Midtown Avenue, under the influence. Cook was arrested and charged with driving under the influence and was ultimately released to a sober party, according to a FPD press release.
The crash caused a power outage in the northwest building of the Longwood Landings and residents were evacuated, according to Landings Residential Education Coordinator (REC) Mary Winn.
In an effort to resolve the situation in the other three Landings buildings, power was shut off and residents were evacuated, according to Landings Resident Assistant (RA) Trevor Heath.
"The most important thing to us is student safety, so we've gotta get an assessment from the fire department, the Dominion people, our environmental health and safety people to let us know what we need to be doing, okay so what protocols need to be put into place to handle this situation," said Director of Housing Jean Wilwohl.
Wilwohl said students were offered the option to be relocated to temporary housing, but that option was not used.
“There probably were students that decided to go stay with a friend earlier in the evening while waiting to find out what was going on,” said Wilwohl.
Power was restored to the northeast, southeast and southwest buildings at approximately 12:50 a.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 21 and power was restored to the northwest building around 10:30 a.m. that morning.
Residents were allowed to re-enter the northwest building as soon as the power was restored for the other buildings even though although the power remained off in the northwest building, according to Wilwohl.
"Once we got the information from Dominion, and the fire department that this was the situation and the power will likely be restored to these three buildings, and this is when the power would likely be restored to northwest, thats when we informed all of the crowds of students that were out there, and thats when we sent out the email notification so that if there were people that weren't still there that they would know what was going on," said Wilwohl.
A new transformer was delivered around 7 a.m. from Alexandria, Va.
According to Wilwohl, while the power was out, RA staff for the northwest building verified residents while the Lenel card reader wasn't working.
“(RCL staff) got all the emergency personnel that we needed to have there, as quick as possible, working diligently to get the students back into their living spaces,” said Wilwohl.
FPD are still investigating the crash and this story is ongoing.
Longwood Landings residents were evacuated from 9:37 until around 1 a.m. while Dominion Power worked to restore electricity in the North West building.
Michael Aaron Cook, 28 of Burkeville, was driving a 2014 Ford Fiesta, under the influence when he crashed into the transformer located behind Moe's Southwest Grill.