Breaking: students, faculty experience power outage across UT campus

This morning at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, buildings across campus unexpectedly lost power. While electric personnel restored most of the power immediately, some areas of campus are still without power.

According to Samantha Ledford, communications coordinator for UT Facilities Services, traffic light work at 16th street and Cumberland avenue caused the outage.

“[Workers] drilled into a high voltage system that serves campus,” Ledford said. “Because of that, it has caused a momentary outage that held a large portion of campus.”

Ledford said Facilities Services has personnel working to restore LA4 Circuit power to the rest of the campus currently.

According to the UT Facilities Services Twitter (@utkfacserv), “LA4 Buildings include Dogwood Hall, Laurel Residence Hall, Magnolia Hall, Orange Hall, G-7 Parking Garage, Presidential Court, Reese Hall and White Hall.”

Since approximately noon, Dogwood Hall, Magnolia Hall, Orange Hall, White Hall and Presidential Court have power again.

** An electrical outage has occurred affecting Laurel Substation. This has affected several buildings on Campus. FS is evaluating the cause. As of this time circuits LA3 and LA4 are still off. If you have issues please call Facilities One Call at (865) 946-7777.**

— Facilities Services (@utkfacserv) September 6, 2019

Additionally, more information about which buildings are connected to which circuits along with which campus restaurants are closed is located online.

The campus has advised faculty to use their discretion regarding holding classes for the remainder of Friday.

Faculty are asked to use discretion as to whether to hold classes based on environmental factors such as temperature, available light, and resources in their classrooms.

— UT Knoxville (@UTKnoxville) September 6, 2019