It takes a lot of power to put on a Wichita State basketball game, especially inside the arena. The lights, the scoreboard, the noise are all typical parts to the production. But not usually on a day like this.
"We have a power outage and classes have had to be cancelled since about 8:10 to 8:15 this morning," said Beth Epps, Wichita State Professor.
Parts of the campus, including Koch Arena, lost electricity for about an hour.
"We talked to Westar and went through their issues and made sure as they were trouble shooting and as they found their issues that there wasn't anything out there that potentially could affect us," said Brad Pittman, Associate Athletic Director of Facilities and Game Operations.
Emergency lights run by a backup generator are setup all around the arena to safely guide people if the lights go out.
"I'm sure there'd be people wondering what's going on," Pittman said. "But at the same point in time, our public addressing system is on emergency power so we could communicate with people. We could tell them to be calm and be patient."
But patience might be hard to find when a title clinching game is on the line. Just to be sure, an electrician guards the electrical room all night.
"We've never had that issue, knock on wood, in this building, so hopefully that trend continues," Pittman said.
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Update: A Westar spokeswoman tells Eyewitness News a switchgear malfunctioned, causing the power outage. The system is supposed to detect a problem, then shutdown power flow to prevent further damage. But a flaw in the system forced the power outage.
The energy company searched cable by cable and tested all equipment to determine the source of the problem.
The underground utility made it more difficult to access the problem, they said. Power was fully restored to the campus by 3 p.m. Wednesday.
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Update: Power is back on in some places on WSU's campus. The north side is still without power, though. Still no word on a cause. Classes are not affected by the outage.
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Wichita State University is without power this morning. WSU spokesman Joe Kleinsasser says the power went out shortly after 8:00 Wednesday morning.
Kleinsasser says utility crews are working on the situation and generators are working in some places. Still, much of the campus is without power.
So far, classes have not been affected by the outage.
No word on why the power went out. We'll let you know if there are any updates.
