Power was restored to Saint Mary's College at 10 a.m. Friday following an outage that left the College without electricity for nine hours. Campus was closed Friday until 1 p.m. for faculty, staff and students following the outage.

Two wires leading to an oil switch in the main building north of Le Mans shorted at approximately 1:15 a.m. Friday, causing a 4,160 volt outage, said John DeLee, director of Facilities Friday.

Campus systems sustained no damages during the outage, although voice mail systems remained unavailable for students during the weekend. Campus officials hope to have services restored today.

Emergency situations on campus prevented immediate investigation into the cause of the power outage. Two campus residents trapped in separate residence hall elevators prompted immediate response from security officials. A McCandless Hall resident was freed shortly after 1:30 a.m. after being trapped on the first floor.

A Holy Cross Hall resident remained trapped between the second and third floor of the residence hall for more than two hours before it was determined it was too dangerous to remove her. Resident assistants remained with the victim throughout the evening while security officials and Montgomery Elevator Services worked to free the woman. The woman was freed shortly before 4 a.m. Friday.

Security officials contacted Koontz Wagner Electric shortly after the outage, and the company worked throughout the evening to restore power to campus.

Regina Hall and Moreau Center for the Arts were the only buildings not affected by the outage, which left Saint Mary's residents without heat, voice mail services and computer network access. Network access was restored to campus approximately one hour following the restoration of power, said Joel Cooper, director of Information Technology. E-mail services were restored at noon Friday.

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