Hundreds Of Students Displaced By Duquesne Power Outage
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – It's been more than 24 hours, but staff and students at Duquesne University are still in the dark.
A power outage has officials there scratching their heads, unable to figure out what's causing it.
However, officials say they hope to have power restored by noon Sunday.
The power outage started around 10:30 a.m. Thursday, forcing some students to pack up and leave.
About 1,300 students from three residence halls – St. Ann, St. Martin and Assumption – all had to find a new pace to stay.
"The power just went out all the sudden and the showers all got cold, which is what everybody, was kind of mad about," Freshman Tom Fisher said.
Other students were upset that the timing was less than idea.
"It's a real pain in the butt," Freshman Kyle Smith said. "It's a real pain in the butt, I mean, it's nothing that anyone wants to have to deal with right now, especially with midterms and everything. So we'll just make the most of it and have a good weekend right before spring break."
The majority of impacted students are staying with friends and family off campus.
Nearly 200 undergrads are rooming with friends in other dorms and about 25 are taking advantage of some cots set up in the Student Union and the Fitness Center.
Giant generators were also brought in to power the dorms to keep pipes from freezing.
As to what cause the outage though, crews still aren't sure. Determining the source has been a challenge, considering all of the university's utility lines are underground.
"We know there is a ground fault error in one of the underground utility lines that services these three facilities," Facility Management Executive Director Rod Dobish said. "We don't know exactly where that is."
Crews have been working non-stop, even overnight, but more than 24 hours later, there are still a lot of unanswered questions.
"We can't really tell if we have to replace part of the line or a full line," Dobish said. "We don't know that right now."
The generators will stay in place for the time being because there is still no exact timeline on when the repairs will be wrapped up at the university.
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