Power outage impacts residence halls, athletic facilities on west side of CSU campus

Kelly Lyell, Fort Collins Coloradoan
Updated ·2 min read
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Several buildings on the west side of Colorado State University’s main campus, including a handful of residence halls as well Moby Arena and Canvas Stadium, experienced a power outage Wednesday morning that lasted about 40 minutes, a school spokesperson said.

CSU issued a safety advisory just after 11 a.m. about the power outage, estimating it would take three hours to repair. Power was restored to all affected buildings by 11:25 a.m., spokesperson Nik Olsen said. CSU Police first reported the outage about 10:45 a.m., he said.

Fort Collins Utilities spokesperson Nick Combs said he confirmed with CSU's facilities staff that the outage was caused by an issue on their end and not related to the city's utility service. There were no impacts on utility service to the rest of the city, Combs said, adding that he was at Canvas Stadium with other Fort Collins Utilities workers at their annual holiday gathering when the outage occurred.

The outage was caused by a flooded switch vault, Olsen said.

Residence halls impacted by the outage included Durward, Westfall, Summit, Ingersoll, Edwards and Newsom, the university said in the safety advisory posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Wednesday was the first day of spring semester classes at CSU, following a weather closure Tuesday for extreme cold. Monday was a university holiday in recognition of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Wednesday's issues were not related to a heating plant problem over the weekend that impacted Newsom Hall, forcing university officials to provide temporary emergency accommodations in other buildings to students arriving for the start of the spring semester, Olsen said.

CSU facilities workers were working around the clock throughout the cold spell over the holiday weekend to monitor and repair infrastructure problems that occurred as quickly as possible, Olsen said. Temperatures Sunday night and Monday night in Fort Collins were well below zero.

Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan.com, twitter.com/KellyLyell or facebook.com/KellyLyell.news.

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Power outage impacts residence halls, athletic facilities at CSU