An overloaded cable and circuits caused two power outages at Wake Forest University on April 15, said Assistant Director of Facilities James Blackburn.
The outages left South campus buildings in the dark while Facilities Management crews scrambled to repair blown fuses and overloaded cables.
According to Blackburn, the first outage occurred when fuses blew in the south substation at 2:30 a.m. Thursday.
“We were aware of an increased electrical load in the south substation for several weeks,” said Blackburn. “The outage occurred when we tried redistributing the power load to ease some of the strain and it ended up being too much for the fuses.”
The fuses were replaced and power was restored by 3:30 a.m. The second outage occurred at 9:30 a.m. when a high-voltage cable in parking lot H exploded. Power in all South campus buildings was restored by 3 p.m Thursday.
“Crews worked until 2 a.m. Friday to repair the south substation, but we were able to feed power to South campus from the north substation until then,” said Blackburn.
Eleven buildings were affected by the power outages, including Benson University Center, Z. Smith Reynolds Library, Tribble Hall and all South campus residence halls.
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