While Monday meant it was time to get back to the grind for most Madison residents, thousands of UW-Madison students and staff on the east side of campus saw their day suddenly grind to a halt after an electrical fire sparked a two-hour power outage.
Park Street marked the border for campus areas affected by the outage, with buildings to the east, including Memorial Union, the southeast dorms, Humanities and Vilas Hall, experiencing a lack of electricity from approximately 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Luckily, many campus buildings had battery-operated emergency lighting for common areas and hallways.
Nevertheless, the emergency lighting failed to prevent large-scale inconveniences for many. UW-Madison freshman Adriana Granado, a ninth-floor resident of Ogg East, was retrieving some books she had forgotten for her Spanish class when the elevator she was in shut down.
\My heart stopped. I did not know what happened,"" Granado said. ""All of a sudden the lights just went out. I opened the door and saw I was in between the floors. I kind of looked down and said, 'please don't let this drop.'""
Granado added that because she was detained in the elevator for approximately 40 minutes, she was unable to attend her Spanish class.
""I had nothing with me,"" she said. ""I just sat there. I only had my key to get back into my room to get my books.""
Fellow UW-Madison freshman Nick Tempone was showering in the windowless bathrooms of Witte Hall when the blackout interrupted.
""I didn't know what was going on, if it was fire,"" Tempone said. ""After a minute the emergency lights came on, but for a while it was pretty dark in there.""
At Memorial Union, units like the ASM Student Print were unable to function while all food units had to close down, according to Building Manager Yvette Merritt.
""We had everyone, all the units, like the Rathskeller, the Daily Scoop-everyone that had food-quickly gather their stuff,"" Merritt said. ""All the food that needed to be refrigerated had to be moved.""
Electricity returned just in time, however, to prevent the food exodus to Union South.
Students living off campus also felt an impact. Katie Jaeger, a UW-Madison senior, was drawn out of her apartment after it hit.
""I'm heading to Grainger because I heard they have power,"" Jaeger said. ""They've got to have something; there's no lights at my house!""
Yet not everyone on east campus succumbed to the inconvenience of the power outage. Wisconsin Union Director Mark Guthier used the natural light in his office to continue the meeting he was hosting when the power loss occurred. Reference Librarian Helene Androski also reported that Memorial Library only saw the lights flicker once and was otherwise exempted from the power loss.
