Students attending classes in the east and central areas of campus Monday morning got a shock when a power outage left many in pitch dark classrooms.
Siva Praksh, associate director for the Physical Plant, said the outage, which occurred around 10:45 a.m., was “brief” yet affected numerous buildings on campus. Physical Plant was able to respond quickly, he said.
Eyewitnesses reported outages in the Communication and Information Sciences building, the Social Sciences (SOC) building and the Student Services building, among others.
“One of the main electrical (cables) that provides power (to USF) suffered an unscheduled interruption,” he said in an email. “Physical Plant reset a large circuit breaker in our sub-station and re-energized the feeder, which addressed the unscheduled disruption.”
During the power outage, the emergency lights in the SOC building didn’t turn on.
Prakash said Physical Plant was making “emergency repairs” to the SOC building’s generator system, which is used to provide emergency back-up power.
He said Physical Plant workers arrived at the SOC building “immediately” to provide lighting assistance “as a precaution to ensure the safety of building occupants” until the power was back on.
– Staff Report
