The Nebraska Union, the Selleck Quadrangle, the Wick Alumni Center and the History Nebraska building experienced a power outage Tuesday afternoon.
The power came back on at 2:40 p.m., an hour after it went out. Patrick Edwards, the senior associate director of operations for Nebraska Unions, explained that the outage was caused by part of the grid going out.
“It’s a small-area grid power outage,” Edwards said during the outage. “One of the lines blew and (Lincoln Electric System is trying) to back feed the system. Hopefully, within 20-30 minutes we should start seeing lights back on.”
It is unclear what caused the outage at this time.
Frank Bartek, general manager of Valentino’s Pizza, said at around 1:40 p.m. the power went out and, to his surprise, didn’t immediately come back on.
“I thought it was going to be a momentary thing,” Bartek said. “Every now and then, there’s a flicker type thing, and that’s what I thought was (happening) again. I’ve never been here before when the power’s been out this long, and it’s been about 45 minutes.”
With no power, the Union’s restaurants had to temporarily close. Damian Lisak, assistant manager of the Union’s Subway, explained that until the power came back on, he and his co-workers couldn’t do much.
“Our system is down,” Lisak said during the outage. “It’s pitch black. We cannot make any food or anything. It’s bad, and we’ll see how we’re going to recover because once the power comes back, there’s going to be a lot of people coming to eat.”