Students often brag about their pre-Slope Day blackouts, but a power outage probably isn’t what they had in mind.
Numerous buildings off-campus in the City and Town of Ithaca lost electricity Thursday night due to a power outage, according to a University special conditions alert.
At 9 p.m. on Thursday night, approximately 2,765 — or 6.45 percent — of New York State Energy and Gas customers were without power, according to NYSEG’s Outage Viewer Map.
Joe McKnight, who works at Big Time Barber Shop, was in the middle of cutting a customer’s hair when his store lost power.
“I’m glad I went to the bathroom before taking my clipper to his hair, because it would have been ugly,” McKnight said.
McKnight — who, like many other business owners, closed shop and stood outside his store — pointed across the Commons, where at Sammy’s Pizza, he said three of his customers were sitting in the dark, waiting for the power to be restored.
“They’re coming back for their haircuts after the power comes back,” Mcknight said.
Meanwhile, diners at Simeon’s, a restaurant on the Commons, sat eating their meals by candlelight. Other businesses shut down altogether for the evening, with their owners standing outside, crossing their arms, in hopes of waiting out the outage.
In lower Collegetown, the sight was almost eery: house after house was pitch black. Some residents poured into the streets to wait out the power outage on their porches.
As lightning flashed in the sky and rain began to drizzle, some students trekked back to campus in the hopes of finishing their school-work in the library.
But one in Collegetown simply admired the display, turning to his friend and saying, “Sick lightning, bro.”
Original Author: Akane Otani