Darkness fell over Duke Monday when approximately 17 buildings on West Campus and sections of Duke University Hospital suffered a power outage at about 2:30 p.m.
The blackout trapped individuals in elevators, set off fire alarms, disrupted Internet access and forced professors to cancel classes and managers to close eateries.
Power was restored to all buildings by 4:20 p.m.
Parts of West Campus and the hospital that did not completely lose power experienced other forms of electrical disruption, including loss of Internet access and flickering lights.
The outage was the third in the past week. Power was previously lost March 13 and March 17 for about an hour each day.
As of 6 p.m. Monday, administrators had not determined the exact cause of the most recent failure.
"There was an electrical surge, and that tripped the substation," said Kemel Dawkins, vice president of campus services.
University officials do not know if the three outages are connected or if another one is likely to occur.
Marilyn Lineberger, a spokesperson for Duke Power-the independent company that supplies power to the University-said Duke operates on its own distribution system. She blamed the outage on that local distribution system.
Aurel Selezeanu, the University official in charge of high voltage power, declined to comment on what caused the outage.
Although there was speculation from administrators and employees that the outage was related to construction on the student plaza, Larry Moneta, vice president for student affairs, said this was not the case.
Jeff Molter, a spokesperson for the hospital, said patients were never in danger and emergency generators kept the power running in the affected areas of the hospital.
He added that fire alarms were set off by the loss of power rather than any fires or smoke, and Duke University Police officials confirmed that several alarms throughout campus were set off in a similar fashion.
The outage left several community members stranded in elevators. In Perkins Library, visitor Ele Belfiore and theater studies graduate student Anna Upchurch waited for 30 minutes before being rescued.
"It was not anything traumatic by any means. We thought it was sort of funny," Upchurch said.
Aaron Graves, associate vice president for campus safety and security, said all elevators were cleared by 3:15 p.m.
The blackout rendered DukeCard readers useless, effectively locking buildings and disrupting retail service.
Affected restaurants-including the Great Hall, The Loop and Subway-closed soon after the outage.
Alpine Bagels also closed, but acting manager Herbert Brown let students take some of the non-refrigerated food. "We believe everyone's honest," he said, noting the students would pay for the food on their next visit.
"I got a parfait because I'm here everyday and the lady knows me," sophomore Hilary Lenz said . "I promised to pay her tomorrow. I said, 'I'm not trying to gyp you. I'm here to love this parfait.'"
A number of classes across campus were cancelled, including several in the Languages Building and in the Bryan Center.
Some language professors said they could not even swipe into their classroom, much less conduct class. "I can't teach without a board," said Sara Saba, an instructor in the Romance studies department.
Barbers at the Duke Barbershop huddled around four lit candles. Owner David Fowler said the outages have made it difficult to operate on a set appointment schedule. Last week, Fowler had to finish a haircut outside in the daylight.
The outage in the hospital primarily affected the Duke South clinics.
Shortly after the outage began, loudspeakers in the hospital repeatedly announced a "Code Black" in the clinics. "Code Black" is the term used for an electricity failure, a hospital official confirmed.
In Clinic ID in Duke South, most work stopped with the outage. "Everything we do is dependent on computers," said Chris Hudson, a patient service associate.
At the Platelet Antibody Lab in the same area, all the electrical instruments stopped working. The technicians used flashlights to find their way around, calling the emergency lighting "ineffective."
The lab has many archived patient and study samples in refrigeration units dependent on electricity.
"Our backup plan is either for them to run us a cord from an area with power or to physically move the samples to another refrigerator," said Lynn Jordan, the lab supervisor. "Most labs do have backup power.. This one is outdated."
Several members of the Chronicle staff contributed to this story.
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