Shortly after 9 p.m. on a very important Sunday, Russell House and central campus residence halls went dark.
“We were watching the Super Bowl in the community area on our big screen TV, and it was in the middle of the third quarter, it just snapped,” said Andrew Macmurray, first-year mechanical engineering student. “I thought someone turned out the lights ‘cause it went to commercial break and the screen went black.”
The power outage was caused by a power line short around McBryde, said Jeff Stensland, public relations director. This resulted in power outage in all surrounding buildings for a few hours. Repairs will continue throughout the week.
Sunday’s outage continued to affect students, as Panera Bread announced its closure for all day today.
“Personally, just ‘cause the lines are always so long, I don’t usually go to Panera,” said Danielle Kleinman, second-year business management student. “But, I mean, I’m kinda surprised that they’re closed all day.”
However, Panera Bread's closure was nothing more than an inconvenience for students going to Russell House for lunch.
“It’s inconvenient, but I tend to just kind of deal with inconveniences as they come, ‘cause I think with Panera, I think they have the bakers come in super early in the morning,” Ramirez said. “And they’re just not able to do that, so I mean, I’m fine with it.”
Will Ramirez, third-year media arts student, was in his residence hall when central campus lost power, but residents for the most part made the best of the situation.
“I was hanging out with my boyfriend at McBryde, and a couple of his guys, they were just hanging out and playing some sort of card game in the hallway with some flashlights on,” Ramirez said. “We just kind of dealt with it.”
Following the power outage, Columbia Fire Department arrived in front of Russell House and Patterson. USC law enforcement said they were responding to a fire alarm.
Preston Residential College was also without power for a few hours, but according to Macmurray, the Wi-Fi remained off until noon Monday.
“It really didn’t affect too much, 'cause I already had all my homework done,” Macmurray said. “But I had some friends who had to go to the library that were doing homework in the building because [the library] had power and Wi-Fi.”
USC's Division of Information Technology has no information about power outage.