Armed with flashlights and a sense of adventure, a band of students toured Stanford’s darkened grounds during a three-day power outage that began Tuesday, June 21, when a fire north of campus damaged the main Pacific Gas & Electric transmission line that supplies electricity to the university. Summer classes and other programs were canceled for the rest of the week, and students flocked to campus respite centers for recharging stations, snacks, and cold drinks (temps hit 103 degrees) while a second power line restored electricity to critical infrastructure. (Though Stanford uses 100 percent renewable energy, most power from its solar farms must be transported via the state grid, meaning the school is not immune to such outages.) The lights came back on Friday, June 24.
Summer Batte, ’99, is the editor of Stanfordmag.org. Email her at summerm@stanford.edu.
