By Staff Report

Peeking through the six-inch crease between the elevator doors at Unitas Tower on Wednesday, freshman Tyler Turner waits patiently as a rescue crew attempts to keep the doors ajar.
With an ax in hand, a member of the Louisville Fire & Rescue squad grabs Turner’s hand and helps him down out of the elevator and onto the first floor lobby of the freshman residence hall at the University of Louisville.
Turner was one of many students this past week who were affected by power outages on U of L’s Belknap campus, which occurred on Tuesday and Wednesday.
U of L issued an alert about the outages on Wednesday at 6:40 p.m., cancelling evening classes. Power was restored at 7:35 p.m.
The outages were followed with a false alarm fire alert at the Miller Information Technology Center on Thursday, issuing a fire alert at 12:42 p.m. The university retracted the alert at 12:49 p.m. after the Louisville Fire Department declared that there was no actual fire.
 Despite the inconvenience, Turner was content with his predicament.
“I just figured if I had to sleep in there I’d just take off my coat and sleep on it in the corner,” said Turner, who was stuck in the elevator for about 15 minutes. “But I figured someone would come to get me.”
On Tuesday, others such as Victoria Wright, had to complete a biology exam on the floor near the entrance of a Strickler Hall classroom because they had lost power in the room.
“I couldn’t see anything,” said Wright, a sophomore chemistry major, adding that she was hoping the test would be rescheduled or moved to a different location.
Instead, she, along with several of her classmates, relocated to the entrance of the class where a small emergency light was located.
“You just don’t need that kind of distraction during an exam,” she said. “It was an important exam and I’m a little uneasy about how my grade will turn out.”
According to Larry Detherage,  associate vice president for facilities, similar situations, such as the wind storm in late September, will cause the University to utilize separate feeders, such as one located off of Third Street.
Both Wright and Park raised concerns about the emergency backup light system, but Detherage said the lights are used solely for exiting the buildings.
“You’ll have enough lights in the building, but just to exit,” he said.
According to John Drees, U of L spokesman, both power outages involved a faulty capacitor off of the university’s property. Drees said that although the power outage lasted for about an hour and a half, classes were cancelled because Louisville Gas & Electric informed the university that they couldn’t determine the length of time it would take for power to be restored.
Larry Owsley, vice president for business affairs at U of L, said that both power outages concerned LG&E, the city’s main supplier of gas and electric amenities.
“We have had meetings with LG&E recently talking about their assessment of the infrastructure because we need quality power supply to campus,” said Owsley of concerns regarding the effectiveness of LG&E’s service to campus.
LG&E officials did not respond to The Louisville Cardinal as of press time.
Student Government Association President Rudy Spencer said that although U of L handled the incidents well, he was worried most about the miscommunication from the university regarding the supposed fire at the Miller Information Technology Center.
“I got so many messages going back and forth on what happened,” Spencer said. “It was very frustrating to me not to know. It seemed like there was a major lag in coming up with information.”