A power outage in the Southwest residential area left students in the dark for about an hour last Thursday night along, with several other campus buildings.

At about 11:20 p.m. the lights went out in the Whitmore Administration building, Boyden Gymnasium and throughout the Southwest residential area.

According to director of the University of Massachusetts physical plant Patrick Daly, the electric cable running from the physical plant through the Southwest residential area failed. The lightning arrestor – helping to protect electrical equipment from lightning damage – was knocked down, affecting the line that powers that particular area of campus.

“When the power went out, it was nerve-racking because no one knew what was going on, and since police were called into the area they might have been expecting a riot to break out,” said sophomore Lucy Kittle.

According to Patrick J. Callahan, the associate news editor at the Office of News and Information for UMass, police were called into the area out of precaution. The police were in the area until approximately 1:30 a.m. and did not have to interfere except for assisting people out of the dining commons.

“A command center was set up near the Southwest tunnel to monitor activity, but police noted that students were well behaved while the power was out,” said Callahan.

This incident was isolated from the scheduled power outages that were scheduled to occur on March 15 and 17. Incidentally, these scheduled power outages have been postponed due to a component within the system that needed to be replaced.

The power outage on Thursday did not contribute to the postponing of the scheduled power outages, which have yet to be assigned a new date.

“Initially when the power went out, I thought it was part of the scheduled power outages that we were informed about, but since the RAs did not know what had happened we figured it was unplanned and something had gone wrong,” said Nicole Bowker-Kelly.

According to John Mathews, assistant director of facilities and campus planning, the tests will be rescheduled when the system has been fixed and comprehensively checked out. Their hope is to plan the outages for a time that causes minimal disturbance for students, faculty and events on campus.

“A lot of people left their dorms when the power went out to go outside and see if anything would happen,” said Southwest area resident Emily Gittes. “Everyone was well-behaved, though, and most students just stood around, talking and taking pictures.”

Kristen Healy can be reached at [email protected].