At 9:45 a.m. this morning, the power abruptly shut down at the Littleton campus of Arapahoe Community College (ACC). Stunned students heard a snap immediately after the lights went out. Shortly after officials sprang into action.

One firefighter of the South Metro Fire Department, who could not speak in an official capacity, said they evacuated three people from the elevators that had suddenly stopped.

Officer Kevin Heylin, of the Littleton Police Department, said, “No clue,” in response to what caused the outage, “It’s around the city and extends to Boulder.”

As Senior Financial Aid Advisor, Lance Coppin, was assisting with evacuation at the front doors, he added that there were news reports this morning announcing the potential rolling outages, but not disclosing when and where the outages would occur; however, Xcel did disclose it on their online outage maps.

Xcel’s rolling outages were prepared for the extreme high winds across multiple cities today. According to the National Weather Service, “Windy conditions today with gusts up to 65 mph over the higher terrain and gusts up to 60 mph across the plains. The windy and dry conditions will create critical fire weather conditions and Red Flag Warnings are in effect.” The warning will be in effect to at least 6 p.m.

Following the outage, one student, Sabrina C., who was seeking help in the Disability Accommodations Services office, says that because she didn’t know what was happening, she began to panic. She described the fear of uncertainty, and how she began to think of the different possible emergencies taking place.

The Dean of Students Office stated that they were available for counseling for any students who were affected by the outages. Since the school’s closure, the offices are no longer available. Students can find ACC’s virtual services for help.

At 10:32 a.m. ACC sent mass texts, emails including their official statement, and automated calls to announce that all classes prior to 5 p.m. were cancelled with an update expected by 3 p.m. Faculty immediately evacuated the building after the alert was sent.

Despite concerns that this was related to the Amazon Web Services issues from this morning, the events are unrelated.

Though power outages can be inconvenient, Xcel and the National Weather Service are the most reliable sources to identify what’s going on, keeping their sites updated around the clock.

Edit to Add: ACC announced at 3 p.m. that power has been restored and all classes starting at 5 p.m. or later will be held.