Summer college students got an unexpected day off Thursday.
Classes were canceled at Iowa Central Community College after a construction mishap Thursday morning led to a power outage on campus.
Construction on a new food service facility is ongoing west of the Student Support Services Building. The problem was caused when someone operating construction equipment dug into an underground cable, said Physical Facilities Director Troy Brandt.
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A MidAmerican crew was at work outside the student support services building at Iowa Central Community College Thursday. An underground cable was hit by construction equipment, knocking out power to the campus and prompting the college to cancel the day’s classes. The construction is for a new cafeteria.
"The majority of campus should be back up this afternoon," Brandt said Thursday morning. "We canceled classes to be on the safe side."
The break also disabled some of the phones on campus.
MidAmerican Energy Company spokeswoman Tina Potthoff said the break occurred on a customer-owned line.
"The college has asked for our assistance, and we are helping make the repair," Potthoff said. She said the damage was caused by a contractor using a backhoe.
There are students living on campus during the summer, said Troy Crampton, director of institutional technology, but they were unaffected, he said. Power was never lost in the residential buildings.
"It was mainly the administration buildings and this building," Crampton said outside the Applied Science and Technology building Thursday afternoon.
A gas generator was running outside the building to keep the network equipment running, he explained.
The IowaWorks office, located on campus, was also closed for the day due to the power outage.
By 3:30 p.m. MidAmerican crews reported that power was back on for all of the buildings, though there was still more work to do in the hole.
Potthoff said no other customers were affected by the outage.