Partial power outage at SF state

PG&E anticipates the outage to be resolved by 2:30 p.m.

Lisa Moreno wrote this article for San Francisco State’s Golden Gate Xpress. It is available for republication or reference.

Political science professor Nicholas Conway teaches his class in front of the Humanities building due to the power outage on Feb. 23. (Abraham Fuentes / Golden Gate Xpress)

Editor’s note: This story is ongoing and will continue being updated with more developments.

SF State is currently experiencing a partial power outage, forcing all campus community members to evacuate all buildings.

The outage began at 11:12 a.m., and the campus is the only affected facility in the area. PG&E assigned a crew to assess the outage and is estimated to be restored by 12:30 p.m.

PG&E’s initial restoration time was projected to be 12:30 p.m. Residential areas across from campus are now also affected — up to an estimated 5,000 affected customers, according to PG&E’s outage center map.

University personnel are currently meeting to discuss the course of action for buildings remaining open or not. According to Robert King, buildings with labs may have to stay closed.

“I kind of heard something electrical, like a weird noise go off — and then the power just totally zapped out,” said Political Science Department office assistant Leila Harara. “Everybody just immediately started panicking.”

According to the SF State’s Facilities Services student employee Sofia Sweetman, facilities personnel is working with UPD to evacuate buildings and locate elevator entrapments.  

“We’re just being instructed to work with PG&E and then for everything else like elevator entrapments, we’re just having to use our personal cell phones to call people out,” she said.

Sweetman confirmed that there is at least one elevator entrapment, located in the Humanities building.