On the morning of September 27th, the Transylvania campus was hit by prolonged severe weather, the effects of the landfall of Hurricane Helene on the Southeastern United States the previous night and earlier that morning. Wind gusts up to 50-75 mph were reported in the early afternoon as a torrent of rain continued to plague the Lexington area. At the time of publishing, Fayette County remains under a Severe High Wind Warning until 8:00 P.M. EST on Friday and a Severe Flood Watch until further notice.
These conditions were largely expected by groups such as the National Weather Service, and several institutions across the state made appropriate preparations for the weather. The University of Louisville pre-emptively canceled classes for the 27th on Thursday along with several other schools and districts across the state, including Lexington Christian Academy. Transylvania, along with the University of Kentucky, chose not to cancel classes, though some individual professors chose not to hold classes on account of the inclement weather. A notice was emailed out to all students on Thursday night warning of the possibility of severe weather, explaining Thunderstorm and Tornado protocol, and reminding students that the T-Alert system would be used to notify students of any pertinent warnings.
Students and faculty ventured in earnest to and from the academic side of campus on Friday morning through the weather, with conditions beginning to particularly worsen around 11:00 A.M. As the intensity of the wind and rain quickly increased, many expressed concerns over the safety of having students walk to classes from the residential side of campus or farther. At approximately 12:12 P.M., the electricity and internet went down for all buildings on the academic side of campus, grinding most activity to a halt. Still, many students proceeded as normal, departing from their 11:30-12:20 classes and heading towards 12:30-1:20 classes. At approximately 12:20 P.M., a large limb was snapped off the White Ash known as the Kissing Tree in front of the library by wind gusts, falling and blocking the sidewalk below.
Several eyewitness accounts of the event report that an individual was injured by the falling limb and subsequently treated by paramedics, with an ambulance being seen in Old Morrison Circle shortly after the incident. These reports have not been independently verified by the Rambler or confirmed by the administration at the time of publication.
At 12:32 P.M., the Transy T-Alert system sent out the following message to all students and faculty:
“Due to weather conditions, please move indoors. 12:30 p.m. classes are canceled due to power outage”
This message was sent out two minutes after the theoretical start of 12:30 P.M. classes, so many students and faculty had already proceeded to academic buildings through the weather and were now sheltering in place. This message also did not clarify if classes for the rest of the day were canceled or merely for the 12:30 block. This was only made clear by an email sent to all students at 1:19 P.M., which announced that the remaining classes for the day were to be moved online or canceled at faculty discretion.
During this time, several students and faculty were sheltering in place in the library and witnessed events such as the loss of power and the falling of the Kissing Tree limb. Junior student Caroline Host expressed that she believed the confusion on campus could have been prevented, stating, “I think everybody would have been able to avoid a lot of things if we just canceled class today. We obviously saw this coming; so many things were announced to be canceled today. We already got a T-Alert yesterday warning us of severe weather so it’s not like they didn’t know this was going to happen…I think just canceling classes would have been good, and that way professors also wouldn’t have had to drive all the way to campus and risk themselves.” WRC professor and Writing Center director Dr. Scott Whiddon advised students sheltering in place across campus to stay safe and check in on each other, saying, “Check in on your friends via text if your phone has a battery. Folks all over campus are working hard to get this situation tended to soon and tended to safely. I’m really pleased in terms of how lots of different parts of this campus, such as our library staff that we’re hanging out with right now, are working hard to make sure you all are okay.”
Addition (7:00 P.M. 9/27/24)
Little over an hour after the limb from the Kissing Tree fell and a student was allegedly injured, Transylvania Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the University Dr. Rebecca Thomas posted the image below to the @transyacademicdean Instagram account, with the caption, “Our academic building may have lost power this afternoon, but some of our faculty found creative ways to keep instruction going. Physics professor Mostafa Tanyahi Ahari taught by candlelight!”
