OSU's RPAC was closed for about 40 minutes June 27 due to a power outage.

Lantern file photo

A power outage on Ohio State’s campus that affected 13 buildings last week was caused by a worker hitting an electrical duct bank.

“A contractor working on our tunnel repair project hit an electrical duct bank, which damaged the duct bank and some cable, causing the circuit that serviced the impacted buildings to flip,” Lindsay Komlanc, spokeswoman for OSU Administration and Planning Crews, said in an email Monday. “Crews restored the service on the back up circuit and repairs were completed over the weekend and the buildings were moved back to their original circuit at that time.”

The outage happened Thursday at about 4 p.m., and all power was restored by 5:15 p.m., Komlanc said in a Thursday email.

The tunnel repair project is updating a tunnel that runs along Neil Avenue, Komlanc said.

“We are repairing the infrastructure that supports our tunnel system (the top of the tunnel) as well as infrastructure that supports some of the utilities inside and just outside of the tunnel. It’s been going on for two summers now and will wrap up at the end of this construction season – around October,” Komlanc said in a Monday email. “It’s the project you see occurring along Neil Avenue that has the whole sidewalk between 17th and Knowlton shut down.”

Buildings affected in the Thursday outage included the RPAC, Independence Hall, 18th Avenue Library and Bricker Hall. Power was back in Hughes Hall, Hopkins Hall, Hayes Hall and the Wilce Student Health Center by 5 p.m. and back in all buildings about 15 minutes after that.

The RPAC closed completely for about 40 minutes, but shortly before 5:30 p.m., it reopened for open rec.

One day earlier, most of OSU’s South Campus experienced a power outage. The failure of a cable leading into Baker Hall caused a string of outages that affected 21 buildings, including Baker Hall East and West, Hale Hall, the Ohio Union, Kennedy Commons, Drinko Hall and Park-Stradley Hall. The outage was discovered Wednesday afternoon, and all power was restored within about four hours.