Breaking up Saturday’s football game against Western Michigan wasn’t the only havoc wreaked by thunderstorms yesterday afternoon and evening.
After taking cover from the rainstorm that broke out during the football game, many people, including students in residence halls, lost power. Across campus, there were also several steam leaks.
Power outages starting around 8 p.m. were reported by residents at Stockwell Hall, East Quad, Mosher-Jordan, West Quad and South Quad residence halls. However, power in the residence halls has been restored. The University Hospital and parts of the Michigan Union also lost power.
The residence hall power outages were due to a DTE Energy power malfunction, DPS spokeswoman Diane Brown said in an interview Saturday evening. The malfunction might have also been the cause of several steam leaks on campus.
Many students mistook the steam leaks for fires near the Central Campus Recreation Building and another close to Mason Hall. Brown said these were in fact steam leaks, not fires.
Though there wasn’t a fire, the fire alarm went off in Mason Hall as a result of the steam leak. Water was also found in the basement of Mason Hall after the building’s fire suppression system went off.
“There might have been some electrical situation in Mason caused by the steam surge because of the power outage,” Brown said.
Two ladder trucks, two fire engines and the Ann Arbor Fire Department battalion chief’s vehicle responded to the steam leak near the CCRB. An ambulance also arrived at the scene.
Three DPS vehicles and one Ann Arbor Police Department car responded to the steam leak as well. In response to the incident, DPS officers briefly blocked off traffic on Geddes Avenue between Observatory Street and Washtenaw Avenue.
Brown said power was regained in most University buildings as of late Saturday evening.
“From what we understand, most of the residence halls had power restored by 9:10 and the ones up on the hill by 9:35,” Brown said. “The hospitals are now coming up with most of their electricity as well so things are starting to get back more to normal, and we should have it, hopefully, back to normal.”
As of 10: 20 p.m. on Saturday, DTE outage maps on the company’s website showed an estimated 3,475 customers in a zone including North Campus and areas in northern Ann Arbor were affected by the outage.
Eastern Michigan University freshman Zach Paez said he was in the Union when the power went out there.
“The upper floor had power in the hallways, but all the rooms lost it,” Paez said. “While we were sitting there, it just started fading, and the power went out in the hallways too.”
Though the storm’s effects might have bothered some students, LSA freshman Paige Comrie, a West Quad resident, said she wasn’t alarmed by the power outage in her dorm.
“It was kind of exciting,” Comrie said.