By SUSAN JONES
An accident on June 21 at the new Arena and Sports Performance Center construction site next to the Petersen Events Center caused several upper campus buildings to lose power.
David DeJong, senior vice chancellor for business and operations, said a construction contractor operating a backhoe accidentally struck the main Duquesne Light electrical feeder at the site, causing the outages.
“As soon as we were aware of the outage, we took action to update building occupants and post updates to emergency.pitt.edu, amplified on University and Public Safety and Emergency Management communication channels,” he said. “There were no injuries, and all campus building power resumed early Friday morning.”
There were approximately 25 University buildings affected. Buildings with built-in alternative power sources saw only a blip in power service, DeJong said. For other buildings, the Facilities Management team was able to switch to secondary feeders and restore power in one to two hours. There were seven buildings that, due to their configuration and location relative to the incident, had to utilize emergency generators for 36 hours.
DeJong said the University is committed to campus safety and is taking steps to ensure that last week’s power outage incident does not recur.
“Consistent with our protocols, the location of the line was initially identified and confirmed by Duquesne Light Co., with the area marked, and the University reinforced the importance of avoiding this area during construction work,” DeJong said. “We are meeting with the contractor’s leadership team this week to assess the actions that led to this incident, as well as re-emphasizing safety protocols and discussing lessons learned.”
Susan Jones is editor of the University Times. Reach her at suejones@pitt.edu or 724-244-4042.
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