Power Outage Causes Evacuations on Campus

A brief power outage at Fresno City College caused evacuations Friday morning for the library, computer lab and some classes.

The public information office at FCC said the outage was caused by a PG&E issue.

Library Service Assistant Norma Handy said the outage began at 10 a.m. and the electricity was out for about 30 minutes.

Handy said after the power shut off, staff immediately started calling around campus to find out answers.

After 10 minutes without power, students studying in the library had to evacuate. The staff used flashlights to assure that all students were out of the building in case of an emergency, said Handy.

Handy said students were understanding about the inconvenience of the power going out. “All of the students were very cooperative,” she said.

The computer lab, where students go for assistance on school assignments, was also down.

Staff members said the computers were the first to shut off, then seconds after, the lights turned off. They compared the situation to a fire drill and started to evacuate students out of the building.

Around 20 students were inside the computer lab when the outage occurred, and were left with unfinished assignments that were not saved before the computers shut off.

Some students were frustrated about the inconvenience.

Some students said their classes were placed on a hold until the power turned back on.

Some students and staff received a 1st2Know notification on their cell phone stating that the power was turned back on around 10:30 a.m.

Sports editor Jorge Rodriguez contributed to this story.