News

Construction error causes blackout

Eight buildings on campus lose power Friday for more than an hour after crew strikes underground cable

Power was restored to at least eight University of Wisconsin buildings Friday morning after a construction accident caused approximately one hour of downtime.

According to Faramarz Vakili, associate director of the UW Physical Plant, the power failure occurred at about 11:24 a.m. after contractors working on a utility project near Library Mall hit a high voltage cable in the ground.

“It’s just an accident that, at times, happens,” Vakili said. “They were digging in the ground and basically hit a line that they did not know was there. Once we identified the issue, we were able to reroute power to those buildings through other circuits.”

Vakili said power was restored to all buildings affected after approximately an hour, including Chazen Museum, Music Hall, Radio Hall, Humanities, Chadbourne Hall, Barnard Hall, the service building, the service building annex, Science Hall, the University Club, the Law building and Sterling Hall.

University officials at the Humanities building confirmed power had been restored and classes resumed around 1 p.m.

UW freshman Hannah Graber was in Humanities room 2650 when the power failure occurred.

“We were sitting in English and the lights were kind of flickering, but the professor was kind of ignoring it and continued to teach. The lights went back on for probably 30 seconds and then just shut off,” Graber said.

She said students were initially a bit confused but amused by the sudden lack of lighting, and most people remained quiet.

After realizing the power was out in the rest of the building as well, Graber said her lecturer proceeded to speak in the dark for about four more minutes on a “last few thoughts” before she allowed the class to leave.

In the hall, Graber said she did not see many other students leaving classrooms. She then traveled to Chadbourne, where power had also been lost.

“People were kind of peeved,” she said.

Several students that were in a room in Humanities that received some natural lighting at the time of the power failure reported their classes continued as usual.