Update: Power to the area was restored around 9 p.m. WE Energies Spokesperson Brian Manthey said the cause of the outage is currently unknown and will be investigated. No accidents occurred in the streets near campus during the outage according to Department of Public Safety Lieutenant Kevin Walz.
Marquette students living off campus are part of 7,700 WE Energies customers without power in Milwaukee after an equipment failure, said Cathy Schulze, a spokesperson for WE Energies.
“Crews are on the scene right now and trying to start picking people back up onto the grid,” Schulze said.
She said there is no time estimate for when customers will regain power. The outage, which began around 4:30 p.m. today, is currently under investigation.
Department of Public Safety Lieutenant Kevin Walz said no campus buildings are affected.
“We didn’t lose power because all campus buildings run on backup generators,” Walz said. He said some students may have experienced a short power loss before the backup generators started.
The affected area ranges from the Marquette Interchange on the east to 35th Street on the west, and from the freeway to the south to Vliet Street in the north, Schulze said.
Walz said the most significant problem for DPS is street and stop light outage. Some temporary stop signs were placed at the intersection of 16th Street and Wisconsin Ave. to help with traffic. Walz said traffic lights on Wisconsin Ave. are out between 27th and 11th Streets.
Campus bars Murphy’s and Caffrey’s both are making the most of the power outage. Both establishments are still open, serving customers by candlelight.