Officials have confirmed that fault for last week’s power outage on Indiana University’s Bloomington campus lies with the university and not with Duke Energy.
Duke Energy spokesman Lew Middleton says the outage was caused by a malfunctioning switchgear on IU’s campus. Officials originally thought that the problem was related to a Duke substation in town, but it was determined to have originated on campus.
“The fuses that were designed to blow to protect the equipment did not do so, and that’s what caused the ultimate failure of the switchgear and then, that in turn caused the outage on campus," he says.
READ MORE: UPDATE: Power Restored To IU Buildings After Friday Morning Outage
IU spokesman Chuck Carney says it took almost 12 hours to restore power to all affected buildings. The outage struck 55 buildings across campus.
Some exterior doors secured by electronic locks could not be opened using key card access during the outage.
Carney says those doors that are accessed using key cards are supposed to be functional without power. He says university officials are meeting this week to review university protocols in the wake of the outage.
