Power outage at City for more than 3 hours

Screen+Shoot+of+the+Outage+Map+from+the+SDG%26E+website+reporting+the+unplanned+outage+that+happened+at+City+College+and+surroundings+areas.+

Screen Shoot of the Outage Map from the SDG&E website reporting the unplanned outage that happened at City College and surroundings areas.

By Celia Jimenez

Morning classes at City College were cancelled from around 10 a.m to 12:30 p.m. due to a power outage that also affected nearby areas of Center City, Balboa Park and Golden Hill on Nov. 2.

The college spread the news through its social media accounts and students received an e-mail notification from the district about the incident that also encouraged students to look for updates on City’s website.

At the Admission Office, they were aware of the cancellations.

“Through the Life Safe system we got a notification,” Dora A. Meza, the Student Services Supervisor 1, at the office said.

Meza got the notification from the “LifeSafe” app the college introduced on campus at the beginning of the semester.

The power outage started after 9 a.m. and the power came back after 11 a.m. and classes were reinstated at 12:30 pm.

The Admissions Office remained open during the outage despite not having access to phones and computers and continued assisting students.

One of the offices that closed during the outage was the Veterans Affairs Office.

“It was closed down for safety reasons,” said Meza, who noted that that office is too dark without lights and could become a hazard for students and workers.

Students shared stories about how the outage affected them.

“We almost didn’t do one part of our test,” said Alfredo Mendez, who was at his French 201 class when the lights went out.

One of his classmates added that sinks were not working in the restrooms and that classrooms had no lights but the hallways did.

“We didn’t pay attention to it. The only thing we worried about if someone was stuck in the elevator or not,” John Ramirez said. He was in his English 47A class when the power outage occurred.

According to the San Diego Gas and Electric outage map, the one that happened at City College and surrounding communities was unplanned and affected Center City, Balboa Park and Golden Hill.

SDG&E was still determinating the cause of the outage.