This time, it wasn’t a squirrel.

For about two and a half hours Monday, the power was out in at least parts of campus — for some periods all over campus — and University officials didn’t know why.

Last January, a squirrel shorted a power substation causing a power outage on campus. This time, however, a short in a splice — where two wires were previously separated and then joined together — caused the outage.

The outage first occurred at about 5:21 p.m. Facilities then assessed the situation and contacted the crisis communication team. University officials sent a WolfAlert text message informing anyone who signed up for the alerts about the outage, the second alert officials sent out Monday — the first being a test of the emergency system early that morning.

Officials cancelled classes for the remainder of the evening.

Initial reactions

Ivan Hedgepeth, a sophomore in computer engineering, said the outage inconvenienced him Monday.

“I planned on doing some of my homework, but I won’t be able to now,” Hedgepeth said. “I’m glad I still have a few more days to do it, but I’m pretty busy for the next couple days.

Chris Meacham, a junior in business management, agreed.

“I was in the gym with a couple of my buddies and when the power went out, we had to leave,” Meacham said. “I was kind of bummed that I wouldn’t be able to work out.”

The outage also caused dining problems for students like Tyson Swift, a freshman in First Year College, as well.

“Some of my friends and I were about to head to the dining hall to grab something to eat, but the power went out. Now, instead of getting food that I could get with my meal plan we have to go to Cook Out and use cash,” Swift said.

Randy Lait, business officer for University Dining, said Dining officials rushed to provide service for students and stayed open later.

“We had enough things cooked that we were able to maintain service at Case and Clark during the outage,” Lait said.

Clark Dining Hall ran out of food for a little while but opened up again shortly after and Fountain Dining Hall closed for a little while but opened up again around 7:30 p.m., and Lait had all the registers re-set in places across campus. The C-stores all remained open except for the Tunnel C-store, which for a short amount of time.

“When we lose electricity, we lose the ability to cook … some stuff is steam operated, but for the most part, [we can’t cook without electricity],” Lait said.

The University didn’t lose power on Centennial Campus, and Lait said the University is on an emergency plan, so if it loses power for a extended period of time, officials would bring in generators into the dining halls.

University reaction

The crisis communication team met in the Campus Police building to discuss when to send out the text messages and if the University should cancel classes — a decision that is ultimately the responsibility of the provost.

“We talked to Facilities to see how long [the power] could be out,” David Rainer, associate vice chancellor of environmental health and public safety, said.

Rainer said if the situation had been a Campus Police situation, Campus Police would have had the authority to send out the text messages.

News Services also updated the Web site, about an hour after the outage, though the hotline, the Emergency Conditions phone line, had not been updated.

Kevin MacNaughton, associate vice chancellor for facilities, said Facilities tripped off the main substation on campus and opened all breakers that didn’t trip to try and backfeed power to the areas on campus that didn’t have power after the initial power outage.

Capt. Jon Barnwell of Campus Police said officers were responding until Facilities figured out what was going on.

“We’re staged in highly visible locations on campus,” he said.

The outage, Barnwell said, appeared to be on main campus between Hillsborough Street and Western Boulevard and between Gorman Street and Pullen Road.

Barnwell said one of the top priorities was to get the individuals trapped in the elevators out and to restore power to the University’s bigger assets like D.H. Hill Library and Burlington Labs.

Fire Alarms

Fire alarms around campus were activated during the outage, including at Tucker Resident Hall.

“It was activated during the power outage, and for some reason the panel is not responding to our command to shut off,” University Fire Marshall Bill Stevenson said at about 7:45 p.m. Monday. “Now we have to manually shut off the system. Electronics is trying to get here now in order to fix this, but they are at D.H. Hill dealing with [the same issue].”

But Stevenson said communication, at least to him, has been effective.

“We had folks on campus who could get started checking things out and figuring out how to fix the power,” Stevenson said. “My understanding is there have been no major issues with regards to communication.”

Student alerts

Michael Fox, a sophomore in agriculture business, and Turlington Hall resident, said he didn’t really know what was going on right away.

“We dont even have emergency lights in out dorm. I haven’t heard much from my RAs,” he said. “I have been outside for the most part. Some of the RAs have been walking the halls trying to figure out what’s going on, but I really haven’t heard very much.”

Bruce Pressley, a sophomore in business management and resident adviser in Bragaw Residence Hall, said he didn’t know anything even when the power had been out twice.

“The last thing I heard was that they didn’t even know what it was, what was causing it… If the lights go, we have vests we are supposed to wear. We wear the vests and patrol the halls to make sure things are safe,” Pressley said.

The RAs in Bragaw had a meeting, but Pressley said they still didn’t have very much information after that.

Kathryn Crane, a graduate student in accounting, said she received the text message at 6:30 p.m. and had received a text message from her dad earlier asking her if she had an evening class that night because of the power outage.

But she said she had a 6 p.m. class Tuesday and if the outage happened Tuesday, receiving the message that late would have been an inconvenience.

“By the time I got it, I would have already been in class,” Crane said.

Ashley Boggs, a freshman in First Year College, said she knew about the outage because people were walking in her hall talking about it before receiving the text message.

After 7 p.m., the fire alarm went off, she said, and the the power came on about half an hour after.

Progress Energy response

Lisa Tuder, Progress Energy communication specialist, said the outage was not a fault of Progress Energy’s.

“My understanding is that it was something with the University’s equipment and Progress Energy was there to assist with the repair. There was an equipment at the substation, which is owned by N.C. State,” Tuder said.

Managing Editor Derek Medlin, News Editor Chris Allred, Deputy News Editor James Layman and Features Editor Alison Harman contributed to this story.