The southeastern sector of campus experienced a complete blackout at 2 p.m. on Wednesday. Construction workers on the Lake Loudoun Boulevard streetscape project severed a critical power line serving UT’s eastern side.
    
Bob Caudill, facilities operations director, explained the source of the outage.
    
“A contractor hit a retaining wall alongside the administrative parking garage — you’ve probably seen the dig down there. He hit something he shouldn’t have, and circuit five went out as a result,” Caudill said.
   
 The outage affected Neyland Stadium, Thompson-Boling Arena, Andy Holt Tower, Estabrook Hall, Student Services/Communications, Nursing and several smaller buildings on campus.
   
 “They’re all on circuit five,” Caudill said.
    
Though restricted to one area of campus, the blackout interrupted many afternoon classes.
    
Angela Edlin, sophomore in Spanish and international business, had class in the Communications Building during the outage. Her professor decided to continue class despite the lack of electricity.
    
“It was a little dark,” Edlin said. “I was in a Spanish class, so we don’t really use the projector. If I would have been in any of my other classes, it could have been a big problem.”
    
Lydia Price, junior in anthropology, wasn’t bothered by the lack of lighting.
    
“Taking notes in the dark was actually nice, since it’s usually really bright,” Price said.
    
Students were not the only ones affected by the blackouts on campus, as the lack of power also touched the daily lives of teachers.
    
To make up for the lack of lighting, several classes continued outside in Circle Park. While the power outage may have stopped some classes from meeting either in their usual place or even at all, several teachers persevered through what they saw as only an inconvenience.
    
“It didn’t affect me at all because I don’t use computers in my class,” Spanish professor Toya Handelsman said. “... We had to do part of a review because they have a test on Friday, so there was no way I was going to cancel classes.”
    
To facilitate the repairs, there was a 15-minute power outage on the Hill at approximately 3:40 p.m. Ayres, Perkins, Dougherty and several other buildings experienced an interruption in service.
    
Smoke emanating from the west side of Neyland Stadium shortly after the outage caused some panic. Passers-by misinterpreted the cloud, fire alarm siren and the presence of a fire engine as a sign of fire, but the smoke more likely emanated from a generator.
    
UT Facilities Services worked quickly to restore the electricity in Thompson-Boling Arena before the Tennessee-Arkansas men’s basketball game. Extra lighting and enhanced security were supplied to affected parking garages.