Fine Arts Building was without power for more than six hours on Wednesday, Oct. 4 due to an electrical short in one of the Weakley County Municipal Electric System’s primary phases that feed power to the building.

According to UTM Physical Plant Director Tim Nipp, WCME conducted repairs from 7 a.m. until just before 12 p.m., digging a small hole in the parking lot of Fine Arts in order to reach the primary underground line, which runs from the overhead line at Mt. Pelia Road down through the Fine Arts parking lot and into the building’s basement transformer.

“Minor maintenance items such as these happen occasionally,” Nipp said.

Nipp also said that the series of brief power blinks that occurred all over campus the Monday and Tuesday before Wednesday’s six hour power surge could possibly have been a red-flag that the primary phase was in the process of shorting out.

“The ‘electrical jacks’ which serve as breakers on Mt. Pelia Road kicked out a couple of times,” said Nipp. “This could be what was causing the blinks.”

Nipp says he is certain that the power blinks had nothing to do with the functioning of the university’s new generators; it takes longer than a few seconds of UTM being without power before they will kick on.

“The generators never came on because the outages were only a few seconds in length,” added Nipp.

During the repair process, UTM students, faculty and staff were asked to evacuate Fine Arts and classes resumed after lunch. Campus parking was also disrupted to a small degree: Several students, faculty and staff were asked to move their vehicles so that WCME could dig a hole just large enough to reach the underground power line.

Nipp says the maintenance problem was fixed promptly and that he apologizes for any inconveniences experienced during the power outage.