A construction crew working at the intersection of Dickson Street and Harmon Avenue accidentally cut an underground power line that served 25 University of Arkansas buildings scattered across campus. The accident happened at approximately 11:30 a.m. Thursday, July 25. A crew from U of A facilities management was able to bypass the broken line, restoring power to several of the nearest buildings by about 12:15 p.m. Full power was restored to all buildings at approximately 12:45 p.m.

There were no injuries.

Of the 25 buildings that lost power, 20 had emergency backup generators and were able to continue basic operations.

The buildings affected by the outage were the Harmon Avenue Parking Garage, the Mechanical Engineering Building, J.B. Hunt Transport Services Center for Academic Excellence, Willard J. Walker Hall, Kimpel Hall, Founders Hall, Gibson Hall, the Gibson Hall Annex, Gregson Hall, Brough Commons, Epley Band Hall, the Fine Arts Center, the Music Building, the Administration Building, Silas Hunt Hall, the Pat Walker Health Center, Holcombe Hall, Futrall Hall, the Garland Center, Davis Hall, University House, the Broyles Center,  the Bev Lewis Center, the HPER Building and the John McDonnell Field.

The only buildings without a backup power source were the Gibson Annex, the Fine Arts Building, Epley Band Hall, Silas Hunt Hall and John McDonnell Field.

The damaged cable will be repaired by university crews working with contracted specialists in high voltage cable.