Power restored Tuesday to all north campus buildings at WWU

Electricians at Western Washington University worked long hours to repair a main power switch in the Steam Plant that was the cause of a power outage to buildings on north campus, getting power back to the rest of the university by Tuesday afternoon.

"I am glad to report that power has been restored to all affected north campus buildings," said Richard Van Den Hul, vice president for Business and Financial Affairs, in an e-mail message sent to the WWU community Tuesday. "We will analyze the cause of the power outage and our response to it in order to decrease the likelihood of it happening again and also to improve response operations."

Tim Wynn, director of Facilities Management at WWU, said electricians worked long into the night and started early in the morning to ensure that power to the university could get back online as soon as possible.

"I'm extraordinarily proud of all the electricians and the way they responded," Wynn said. "They were selfless, and they showed an extraordinary amount of professionalism in getting the power back online."

The power had been out since 9:10 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 12, in Old Main, Miller Hall, Fine Arts, the Arts Annex, and five north campus residence halls: Edens North, Edens Hall, Higginson, Nash and Mathes.

According to Wynn, the problems began with the catastrophic failure of switch No. 1 in the Steam Plant Sunday morning. After the failure, WWU electricians set to work disconnecting that switch from the main power and bypassing as many portions of campus as possible to get most buildings back online. They were successful in getting power back to most buildings, but some in north campus had to remain offline until the switch was replaced.

Technical experts from the Portland, Ore., company that manufactured the parts came up Sunday afternoon and took the switch apart, identifying the needed replacement parts. Those parts were trucked up from Portland on Monday morning, Wynn said. After reassembling the switching unit, WWU electricians determined that other electrical parts had been damaged by the switch explosion. Those parts were trucked up on Tuesday, and then the electricians did the final assembly, tested and retested all of the components and slowly began bringing the rest of the university back online.

In his e-mail, Van Den Hul thanked the electricians and others at Western who were inconvenienced by the outage.

"I would like to express my appreciation for university employees who were inconvenienced by this power outage and who responded with flexibility and professionalism," he wrote. "Please join me in thanking university employees who worked tirelessly for long hours to restore power to north campus."