that was weird

So, I came in early, as is my wont, and did my first task of the day (retrieving a bunch of loss-on-ignition tested soil samples from the muffle furnace. This is in another building because of fumes but also because of fire risk). Got them safely into the lab (these are small porcelain crucibles filled with very precisely weighed soil, which are then enclosed in a dessicator to keep out moisture. And woe unto the person who drops one and loses some of the soil).

Walked down to my office to start the day.

Then the lights went out.

Yup, another power outage. The grad student across the hall emerged (because there was nothing he could work on, either). One of my colleagues joined us, and then the anatomist came in and HE joined us and we stood around and shot the bull and speculated on the causes of the outage. The grad student is a former EMT who still has most of his contacts, so he found out that most of the county was affected, and not just one, but two power systems (O G and E and Southeastern Electric Coop? I think? I know OG and E because that's what campus has). One colleague, half-jokingly, said "It's terrorists!" and I admit part of me itched to call my parents and see if there had been any news reports of other big outages because these days you never know.

(It wasn't storming or anything at the time, and it would take an incredibly unlucky drunk driver - or more likely, more than one - hitting a pole to cause that kind of an outage). Eventually we all drifted down to the secretary's office to see if SHE knew anything. She played the message from the city - that it was a county-wide outage (we knew that) and that it was "likely to be an extended outage" (which made me groan, because I was envisioning DAYS and wondered how I'd keep the food in my fridge safe).

Reports came in that the schools were sending kids home. People started calling asking about classes. We got word the president was in a "meeting" to determine what to do.

Suddenly, the power came back....so the president didn't have to make a decision. But still - no lab this afternoon, it's likely to be storming and it's already raining so blah. (Anyway, my allergies are extra bad so I really didn't want to go out)

I wish I know what caused the outage, though. Substation tripping? It seems weird for two systems to go out unless they are linked in some way.