A lightning strike left most of campus in the dark for several hours Monday night, presenting problems for several University departments, including The Reveille.
Campus power went out around 6:30 p.m. when lightning hit an Entergy substation near Alex Box Stadium.
Lt. Lawrence Rabalais of LSUPD said lightning hit two insulators as well as a wire leading to one of the substations.
“It ended up knocking out two transformers,” Rabalais said.
Rabalais said he knew the Quad, South Stadium Drive, the Union and CEBA were affected by the outage.
“Probably one-third of the campus was without power,” Rabalais said at 8:45 p.m. Power was restored to campus around 11:30 p.m.
Rabalais said LSUPD officers were doing extra patrols on campus as well as foot patrols in the Quad.
Eric Marshall, chief announcer for KLSU radio, said the station staff left at about 7:45 p.m. after losing power.
“We went off the air and weren’t able to regain on-air control,” Marshall said.
The Reveille night staff moved temporarily to Graham Hall to begin the paper’s production on laptop computers. Employees returned to the Reveille newsroom around midnight after power was restored.
Because of the power outage, guest speaker Lena Williams’ speech in the Union, scheduled for 7 p.m., was canceled. Williams, a senior editor for the New York Times, was to speak about race relations.
Jason Meier, Union program coordinator, said the event would be rescheduled at a later date.
Students had mixed reactions to the lack of lights.
Teryan Warnock, a Baton Rouge resident who was at the Union to hear Williams speak, said she was surprised the University did not have more backup generators.
“I think it’s funny,” said Liz Chamberlain, a pre-veterinary junior.” It’s good situational humor.”
Brandon Smith, a political science and international studies sophomore, said he thought the situation emphasized the need for the Union fee passed last week.
“The Union needs an infrastructure change, especially when it comes to electrical power,” Smith said. “Hopefully students won’t have to suffer too many times.”
Peter Davidson, director of Energy Services, said Monday night was the longest the campus has been without power with the exception of hurricanes.
“I’ve been here 25 years, and I don’t think we’ve had anything this long,” Davidson said.