“Waking up, it’s like a blackout. There’s no lights in the stairwell. I’m trying to manage stairs, turn on my flashlight. Once my phone died, it was completely dark in the stairwell,” student Ricki Taylor told ABC 7 News. “It’s definitely overwhelming especially since I love my university and I feel like we could be doing better to accommodate our students on campus.”

“We just now are able to take hot showers but we haven’t been able to do laundry for two weeks,” another Howard student Morgan Hunt added.

According to a statement from Howard, the outages resulted from construction near campus after a PEPCO feeder was hit. The university has been relying on generators as a temporary solution.

“To our students, we ask for your patience,” Lydia Sermons, a spokesperson for Howard University. “Things are back to normal and, of course, we are really, really sorry that our students experiences some discomfort during this time but these types of things are unavoidable at times and not predictable.”

“We’re all confused and we feel like we’re in the dark,” Asia Moncrief, a sophomore at Howard, told WTOP News about the lack of information communicated to students. “We haven’t gotten any accommodations. That’s the main thing that we haven’t seen from the university.”

In a statement, Howard says it’s working to provide its students with counseling, cooling stations and fans. Still, Sermons acknowledged that the institution could have communicated more efficiently with students.

“Well, I think the takeaway for us is to amp up our communications as quickly as possible to our students to help them understand and to help them manage and navigate the way they need to during these types of moments,” she said, per ABC 7.

This isn’t the first time students have complained about on-campus living conditions. In 2021, some students discovered mold, mice and roaches in their dorm rooms, according to a report from CNN.