Students on campus experienced a power outage this morning, just before 10 a.m., that temporarily shut off all electricity on campus.
According to Ferris electrical supervisor Ken Rodenhouse, the power outage resulted from the city – not a university issue.
Consumers Energy’s transmission line, which is a 46,000 volt line fed to a substation east of the river, is also connected to the 7,200 volt line that supplies electricity to Ferris. When the 46,000 volt line started experiencing issues, it directly impacted the electricity on campus.
Big Rapids residents started experiencing many brief outages as early as 5:45 a.m., before impacting Ferris. Consumers Energy is currently looking for a permanent solution to fix the problem.
“They told me that there would be other interruptions between now and noon.” Rodenhouse said.
Students may experience more brief outages while Consumer continues working on the issue.