Electrical outages at city, TxSt on Tuesday

Electrical outages interrupted business as usual in and around the downtown area and on the Texas State University campus Tuesday morning. 

The downtown outage occurred a little before 9 a.m. and affected an area roughly from Woods Street to the Union Pacific railroad tracks and from Wilson Street to Charles Austin Drive. City spokesman Trey Hatt said about 1,000 accounts were affected. The Hays County Commissioners Court’s regular 9 a.m. meeting was delayed, with commissioners sitting in a courtroom illuminated only by cell phone light until electricity was fully restored to the Hays County Courthouse. More than three hours later, areas of the city were still without power; the windows were dark at Buzzmill and Golden Chick, both located at the corner of Guadalupe and Martin Luther King, in the middle of the lunch hour. On the city’s Facebook page, where updates were posted throughout the day, Facebook users reported continued outages in the Dunbar area and along University Drive.  

The city said the outage was caused by a faulty electrical termination — a piece of equipment installed on the end of a cable to prevent electrical interference. 

Meanwhile on the university campus, power outages led to the cancellation of several classes. Outages were reported at several buildings on campus at around 9 a.m. but power was restored in most areas about an hour later. Then at about 11 a.m., Texas State sent an email and posted on Twitter that most of the campus had lost power. Students were instructed to leave classes they were in and told that classes that began at noon and 12:30 p.m. would be canceled. Shortly before 1 p.m., the university tweeted that power was restored to all buildings except Student Retention, the Edward Gary Garage, the University Events Center and the End Zone Complex. 

The downtown power outage that started just before 9 affected 20 percent of campus, Hatt said. Then, while city crews were working on the initial outage, a second outage affected another 30 percent of campus. Hatt said the city asked Texas State to reroute its loads, and power was restored to the Texas State loads along Post Road, at Strahan and at other areas at 12:13 p.m.