The UCLA campus and parts of Westwood were among the many areas
that lost power in Los Angeles today after city utility workers
accidentally erred in connecting wires and disconnected large
swaths of the L.A. basin from power.
About half the buildings on campus were affected in the
blackout, including chunks of South Campus and the residence halls
on the Hill, said Carol Stogsdill, a spokeswoman for the
university.
The blackout led to a handful of people on campus being stuck in
elevators as campus electricians and service managers worked to
restore UCLA’s power, said David Johnson, director of energy
services and utilities at UCLA.
Many buildings on campus experienced a short flickering of
lights shortly after noon, followed by up to an hour and a half of
no electricity in some buildings, Stogsdill said.
The disturbance to the city’s Department of Water and
Power grid caused UCLA to transfer all its functions to its own
power plant. At that point, the capacity of UCLA’s power
plants were “seriously affected,” Stogsdill said.
Normally, the campus generates most of its power and gets some
from the DWP, but when UCLA was left to its own devices,
electricians and service managers realized the campus’ power
plant would not be able to sustain itself.
As a result, power was shut off at numerous buildings across
campus in an attempt to stave off a complete loss of power.
“It wasn’t absolutely perfect, but it worked,”
said Johnson, who called the city’s power outage the largest
of its kind since the Northridge earthquake of 1994.
Today’s power outage tested the campus’ ability to
function in an emergency situation.
Soon after the DWP essentially made UCLA an island, electricians
and technicians raced around campus to restore power and get a few
stranded individuals out of stopped elevators, Johnson said.
But, “It didn’t take very long and the campus was
quickly re-powered,” Johnson said.
With no computer capabilities, no lights and no television, many
employees and students on campus opted to take a
longer-than-expected lunch break.
Others, such as those working in the James West Alumni Center,
took the opportunity to walk down to Ackerman Union, which remained
powered, and purchase special BearWear merchandise that was on sale
today.
Backup generators powered the UCLA Medical Center, which
reported no problems with patient care; the university police also
functioned normally with its own generators.
And while the Los Angeles Police Department switched to a
heightened state of alert, no such changes occurred at UCPD, said
Nancy Greenstein, a police spokeswoman.
Certain buildings in Westwood Village as well as surrounding
apartment buildings were affected by the power outages.
At Angelino’s on Kinross Avenue, owner Archie Zeinani said
he lost power around noon for about 20 minutes, but added that it
did not really affect business at his Italian cafe. Diddy Riese
also lost power for about an hour, but it was business as usual for
the cookie hotspot which never closed down, according to owner
Steve Smith.
Traffic jams occurred throughout the L.A. area, with
malfunctioning traffic lights causing delays across the city.
The workers at the DWP who inadvertently caused the blackout
were installing an automated transmission system and accidentally
crossed wires, according to Ron Deaton, general manager of the L.A.
DWP.
“They connected it to another line that was not expecting
that much electricity,” he said.
No one was reported injured in the accident.
Deaton estimated that about 2 million people were affected, with
approximately half of the city losing power.
About 42,000 customers remained without power as of 3:15 p.m.,
said Deaton, at a press conference near an intersection where
malfunctioning lights made for balky traffic.
With reports from Bruin wire services.