Were all the spooky happenings this past Wednesday a pre-Friday the 13th phenomenon or was it just Sparky the suicidal squirrel? Around 7pm on the eleventh, students near the Thomas parking garage were shocked by a loud blast that, to some, was mistaken for a gunshot. According to Dave Ramsey, Director of Facilities, it was actually just a pesky squirrel who came “in contact with a transmission line on campus resulting in a transformer failure,” and consequently blacked-out the entire campus.
Karly Zirkenbach, a junior English major stated, “While walking to the Thomas garage I was surprised by a loud bang and a few seconds later a squirrel fell onto the sidewalk not ten feet in front of me.” She was not the only one shocked; a group of ResCom residents emerged onto their balconies inquiring about the noise as well. Soon the entire campus was upheaved by the ensuing blackout.
Erin Ledford, a senior English major stated, “I was in one of the new classrooms in Martinez when the power just shut off. We opened the blinds and my professor kept lecturing.”
While staff members were working with TECO to get the power back on, Stadium Center was being evacuated due to a large amount of smoke accumulating from the restaurants in the bottom floor. This occurrence, while seemingly disconnected from the power outage, was actually an effect of it. “Stadium Center dining was in the process of cooking on a kitchen grill when the outage occurred,” and consequently “the grill hood exhaust system shut off,” explained Ramsey. The unexhausted smoke triggered the smoke detectors to go off, causing Tampa Fire Department to respond and accordingly evacuate the smoke while residents were forced to leave the building for an extended period of time.
“I was in my room in Stadium and I thought we were just having another fire drill until I got to the first floor and saw all the smoke. The elevators were closed until around midnight and we weren’t allowed back in our rooms until much later in the night,” recounted Maria Michaelos, a senior English major. She further explained how scary it was to think that the building was going to go up with all the residents’ personal property inside. Luckily, however, the Tampa Fire Department took care of the incident and no significant damage was sustained by any part of the building.
Bill Neyland, the project manager working on current renovations at UT explained, “Generators that are in buildings on campus will only run emergency and specific equipment, but not an entire building.” He also clarified how one squirrel affected the entire campus by tripping a “vacuum switch which protects the campus from ‘single phasing’,” or burning out appliances that would otherwise still be trying to operate such as the exhaust hood. While not a major issue, it took TECO some time to realize that the switch had tripped elongating the blackout. Neyland will be working with UT this summer to replace the old meter on campus making this sort of thing less likely.
Students flocked to the few areas on campus that still had some electricity while the rest left campus altogether to find solace at local bars and restaurants. 24-year-old Thomas Anesta, manager of a local pizzeria stated, “It was a busy night without a lot of eating or drinking going on. Most of the kids I talked to were just trying to find a place to plug in their phones.” Likewise social media sites were blowing up with comments about the blackout until nearly midnight. While the Electricity was reportedly turned back on around 10pm, Stadium Center remained closed for some time afterwards.
Karly Zirkenbach, a junior English major stated, “While walking to the Thomas garage I was surprised by a loud bang and a few seconds later a squirrel fell onto the sidewalk not ten feet in front of me.” She was not the only one shocked; a group of ResCom residents emerged onto their balconies inquiring about the noise as well. Soon the entire campus was upheaved by the ensuing blackout.
Erin Ledford, a senior English major stated, “I was in one of the new classrooms in Martinez when the power just shut off. We opened the blinds and my professor kept lecturing.”
While staff members were working with TECO to get the power back on, Stadium Center was being evacuated due to a large amount of smoke accumulating from the restaurants in the bottom floor. This occurrence, while seemingly disconnected from the power outage, was actually an effect of it. “Stadium Center dining was in the process of cooking on a kitchen grill when the outage occurred,” and consequently “the grill hood exhaust system shut off,” explained Ramsey. The unexhausted smoke triggered the smoke detectors to go off, causing Tampa Fire Department to respond and accordingly evacuate the smoke while residents were forced to leave the building for an extended period of time.
“I was in my room in Stadium and I thought we were just having another fire drill until I got to the first floor and saw all the smoke. The elevators were closed until around midnight and we weren’t allowed back in our rooms until much later in the night,” recounted Maria Michaelos, a senior English major. She further explained how scary it was to think that the building was going to go up with all the residents’ personal property inside. Luckily, however, the Tampa Fire Department took care of the incident and no significant damage was sustained by any part of the building.
Bill Neyland, the project manager working on current renovations at UT explained, “Generators that are in buildings on campus will only run emergency and specific equipment, but not an entire building.” He also clarified how one squirrel affected the entire campus by tripping a “vacuum switch which protects the campus from ‘single phasing’,” or burning out appliances that would otherwise still be trying to operate such as the exhaust hood. While not a major issue, it took TECO some time to realize that the switch had tripped elongating the blackout. Neyland will be working with UT this summer to replace the old meter on campus making this sort of thing less likely.
Students flocked to the few areas on campus that still had some electricity while the rest left campus altogether to find solace at local bars and restaurants. 24-year-old Thomas Anesta, manager of a local pizzeria stated, “It was a busy night without a lot of eating or drinking going on. Most of the kids I talked to were just trying to find a place to plug in their phones.” Likewise social media sites were blowing up with comments about the blackout until nearly midnight. While the Electricity was reportedly turned back on around 10pm, Stadium Center remained closed for some time afterwards.
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