Power in several buildings on South Campus went out Wednesday night during a planned outage.

National Grid turned off the power at about 9:30 p.m. in the South Campus area due to repairs that needed to be made to a washed-out National Grid pole. Power was back up at 2:45 a.m. Thursday, according to the Department of Public Safety. Power was not expected to come back on until 4 a.m. Thursday, according to an e-mail sent to students Wednesday just after 11:30 p.m.

Buildings expected to lose power included the Slocum Heights apartments, all three Skyhalls, the Goldstein Student Center, the Tennity Ice Pavilion, the Skytop Office Building and the Inn Complete. Heating was also affected.

A National Grid pole, located on Ainsley Drive between Jamesville and East Brighton avenues, was being held up by only a set of circuit wires, said National Grid spokesman Stephen Brady.

National Grid became aware of the situation Wednesday during a routine helicopter patrol of the area, Brady said. The pole was located on a steep incline before the ground underneath it washed out, Brady said. He said it was unclear what caused the pole to wash out, although the storm earlier this week may have caused it.

Special equipment was brought in from Watertown, N.Y., for National Grid to repair the dangling pole, Brady said. It is possible a much taller pole needs to be set, he said.

Initial reports first informed students the outage was expected to occur between 6 and 8 p.m. When the outage was first announced, Brady said it was unclear how long or how many people the outage would affect.

South Campus residents were encouraged to turn off desktop computers or any sensitive electrical or electronic equipment prior to the outage, according to an e-mail sent to South Campus residents.

By 11:30 p.m., many building emergency generators were operational, according to an e-mail sent to students. A Slocum Heights generator was expected to be operational by midnight.

The Goldstein Student Center remained fully operational during the outage. The DPS put out additional patrols on site throughout the process.

dkmcbrid@syr.edu

— A previous version of this article appeared on dailyorange.com on March 9.

Published on March 9, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Dara: dkmcbrid@syr.edu | @daramcbride