Most of the buildings on the Upper Campus were thrust into darkness yesterday morning as students and faculty began their second-to-last day of face-to-face classes of the spring semester.
The power outage struck the Hill less than 24 hours after University President Anthony Monaco announced in an email that most students would be required to not return to campus after spring break amid concerns surrounding the transmission of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19.
National Grid, a multinational energy utility company that operates in much of Massachusetts, was to blame for the outage, according to an email sent to the Tufts community. While Tufts operates its own micro-grid powered by the newly constructed Central Power Plant, it is connected to National Grid's network, which experienced a failure near the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's Wellington station.
Buildings that went without power until being restored in the early afternoon included: Tisch Library and Goddard Chapel, as well as Carmichael, Wren, Miller, Houston, Eaton, East, Braker, Lincoln-Filene, Miner and Paige Halls. Ballou Hall and the Olin Center for Language and Cultural Studies were not affected by the outage.
Uphill power outage overshadows penultimate day of in-person classes
A class meets outside of Goddard Chapel on the morning of March 11.
