Texas Tech and Lubbock Fire Rescue officials were confirming an ongoing evacuation near the campus’ engineering key as well as outages across the Tech and Texas Tech Health Sciences Center campuses following several fires and a power substation explosion Wednesday evening.
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Updated at 10:20 p.m. infrastructure fires, explosion prompt Texas Tech closure ahead of Spring Break
Texas Tech officials announced campus will be closed Thursday and Friday ahead of spring break next week following a number of fires near manhole covers throughout campus and a power substation explosion. The fires and explosion prompted evacuations in the central part of campus and widespread power outages at Tech and the Texas Tech HSC campus.
Updated at 9:50 p.m.
An explosion at a manhole on campus has affected multiple locations and caused widespread power outages on the Tech and Texas Tech HSC campuses according to the latest Tech Alert campus notification shortly after 9:30 p.m. The engineering key remained evacuated and the public was asked to avoid the area. It was not immediately clear what sparked that explosion or how it related to what was previously called a power substation explosion.
Updated at 8:45 p.m.
Caitlynn Jeffries, a public information officer, for the Texas Tech Police Department, released a brief statement to the A-J via email around 8:45 p.m. Wednesday.
“An explosion at a substation has caused power outages at Texas Tech University and Texas Tech Health Sciences Center,” Jeffries wrote. “The Engineering Key has evacuated and we ask that all public and unofficial personnel avoid the campus. Power will be shut down to the entire campus while repairs are started.”
There were no immediate reports of casualties. An Avalanche-Journal reporter is at the scene on the Tech campus waiting for additional information from officials.
Tech notified the campus community about the incidents with an initial Tech Alert notification around 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. The first notification warned that there was a power outage on campus.
A subsequent alert confirmed the engineering key – near Broadway west of Boston Avenue – was being evacuated.
Lubbock Fire Rescue officials are asking the public to avoid the Texas Tech campus as fire crews respond to multiple fires, according to a statement LFR shared on social media.
“The public is asked to avoid the area while crews mitigate this emergency,” the post, which did not provide additional information, stated.
An explosion at a power substation left the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center without power, according to a Tech Alert about 8:45 p.m.
Original story: The Engineering Key on the central part of the Texas Tech campus was evacuated and the university’s emergency operations center was activated after as officials reported gas odors and a utility outage on the campus.
It was not immediately clear what prompted the outage or utility issues. Lubbock Power & Light’s outage map showed an outage impacting about 40 customers across the campus. The cause of the outage was listed as “forced outage.”
The A-J has reached out to Tech campus police requesting additional details. Follow lubbockonline.com for more on this story.
