Power Outage Leads to Evacuation of Medical School Building

Undergraduate researcher Carl W. Davis '00 enjoyed an early happy hour last Friday.

The Medical School's Warren Alpert building was evacuated following electrical trouble around 11:30. So Davis and friends hit a bar for lunch.

The outage, which set off fire alarms and lasted for seven hours, started when a water leak caused a short circuit in the building's power facilities, according to Bill Schaller, a public information officer at the Medical School.

And although the fire alarm kept researchers out of the six-story building until a fire engine checked the scene, the Medical School's emergency power systems kept lights and other crucial electrical systems online.

"Emergency power was not disrupted, nor were the lights or the HVAC," Schaller said.

Refrigerators, incubators and other crucial equipment were connected to special power sockets that fed off of the emergency generator.

"There were emergency power outlets, so anything with a red socket still had power," said Davis. "All our fridges were still working."

There was a run at the stock room on extension cords," Davis added. "They ran out pretty fast."

Schaller said Medical School officials still have "not a clue" as to what caused the initial outage, but technicians were able to get the normal power system back online by creating a temporary circuit that bypassed the short circuit.

"It's a temporary fix right now," he said. "They will correct the problem shortly."

And Davis said the event would not go down in the annals of research disturbances.

"It was kind of annoying, but it was a Friday, and people weren't doing a lot anyway," he said.