Power outage hits
UH buildings again

Crews were working last night to restore power to several buildings at the University of Hawaii-Manoa campus, but officials were unsure whether electricity could be brought back in time for tomorrow's classes.

The outage occurred about 6 a.m. yesterday, cutting electricity to all the buildings that also had lost power after floodwater swept over the campus last weekend.

Officials were set to meet today to discuss how many classes would have to be shuffled to other areas of the campus if power isn't restored in time, said UH spokesman Jim Manke.

He said classes would likely not be canceled if power isn't restored.

The university's east-west substation, which also went out during the Halloween-eve flood, is to blame for this weekend's outage, but the cause of the power failure is still being investigated.

"We thought we had it fixed last week," Manke said.

He said a contractor and UH engineers are working around the clock to fix the problem, which was exclusive to the Manoa campus.

Electricity to some buildings -- mostly labs and research offices -- was restored yesterday afternoon. But Manke said several of the buildings still without power are those with the most classrooms.

He could not say how many buildings were affected by the power failure or how many were back online.

Manke also said the outage would not affect the work of a Texas-based disaster recovery team brought in to restore buildings on campus devastated in the flood.

Roughly 230,000 maps and historical photos, more than 100 computers and thousands of books were damaged when floodwaters deluged Hamilton's basement. The flood also hit key laboratories on campus, including the world-renowned Institute for Biogenesis Research.