From about 12:08 a.m. to 4:30 a.m. Chico State experienced a complete power outage.
The cause of the power outage is unknown, according to an email sent out to campus by Facilities Management and Service.
“Power has been restored to campus, and the university is open for normal operations today. Our team continues to investigate the cause and assess any impacts to campus facilities and systems that may have been caused by the outage,” Facilities Management and Service stated.
The power outage was traced to the electrical system that serves several buildings including Butte Station, Shurmer Gymnasium, O’Connell Technology Center, Holt Hall and Tehama Hall, stated Public Relations Director Andrew Staples.
“The working theory is that a piece of equipment may have experienced a fault, which triggered a shutdown that ultimately affected the broader campus power system,” Staples said.
The Pacific Gas and Electric Company map didn’t show an outage, indicating it was a campus outage rather than a PG&E one.
University Police Department Sgt. Dale Glander, who was parked in front of Kendall Hall during the time of the outage, said he didn’t have the most up-to-date info but confirmed that it was a problem with campus services rather than PG&E.
Most buildings during the outage had a handful of safety lights on inside but two buildings were bright, the Bell Memorial Union and the Arts & Humanities building. The BMU’s generator was very loud.
All the lights came back on over the course of a minute starting at 3:50 a.m., first building lights and then streetlights.
Aiden Masson can be reached at [email protected]
