Just before 3:30 p.m. on Friday, multiple power outages were reported at residence halls, academic and utility buildings across campus at Notre Dame.
In an email to hall rectors, 18 residence halls were identified as experiencing a loss of power. All South Quad dorms lost power, along with a majority of halls in West and God Quads, following an investigation by The Observer.
The blackouts were the result of a single electrical fault, according to assistant vice president for utilities and maintenance Paul Kempf in a statement to The Observer.
“A fault in an electrical vault near Lewis Hall resulted in a loss of power to several buildings and dorms, mostly on the west side of campus,” Kempf stated.
LaFortune and Duncan Student Centers experienced flickering lights but not outages, according to Maureen Doyle, director of student centers, activities and events. Similar flickering without a blackout was observed at some residence halls, Hesburgh Library and O’Neill Hall of Music, among other buildings.
The outage was addressed by Campus Safety, which communicated in a 5:32 p.m. email that restoration of the systems would likely occur by the evening.
Br. Dennis Gunn, the rector of Alumni Hall, reported that power to the building was restored around 6 p.m. According to Sorin rector Daniel Driscoll, the blackout was not lifted there until 7:30 p.m.
By 8:41 p.m., a Campus Safety email signaled that all power had been restored, except for that of Keenan and Stanford Halls.
“Our team will continue to assess additional fixes that must be administered to restore the campus grid,” the email read, crediting the University’s Utilities and Maintenance team for the fix. The University alerted students to the possibility of brief outages throughout the night as the system was further inspected.
“All buildings except Keenan and Stanford Halls were returned to service earlier through temporary means, but the location of the fault was such that an alternate source of supply was not available for Keenan and Stanford,“ Kempf stated.
Keenan rector Cory Hodson said the outage forced slight changes to Welcome Weekend preparations for freshmen, relocating hall programming outdoors. Emergency lights stayed in operation, but all water fountains and digital card readers for hall entryways remained off.
An email to Keenan residents at 10:46 p.m. stated that the outage was still ongoing and planned for St. Andre committee members to conduct wakeups. According to Kempf, power to the halls was restored around 3:30 a.m.
