Power outage darkens Pan American Center, delays basketball game. Here's what happened.
LAS CRUCES – Just minutes into the rivalry game Tuesday between New Mexico State University and the University of New Mexico men's basketball teams, the Pan American Center went dark.
The outage knocked out power not only to the stadium, but to other buildings on the NMSU campus. It caused a 45-minute delay to the game, affected the use of bathrooms inside the stadium and led to other minor disturbances throughout the night.
At the under 16-minute timeout of the first half, with the Aggies leading 9-7, NMSU officials presented a game ball to a sponsor at half court when the lights went out.
The full blackout, at 7:17 p.m., lasted just seconds before a generator kicked in and provided dim lighting throughout the stadium full of 6,200-plus fans.
Fans used their phone flashlights to light up the stadium in the initial moments of the blackout.
Weird moment as the power suddenly shuts off in the middle of the NMSU-UNM game at the Pan American Center. Fans immediately pull out their phone lights to get through the 15 dark seconds. We’re currently in a delay pic.twitter.com/qrvmzEWEGk
— Stephen Wagner (@stephenwag22) December 1, 2021
Other buildings on campus didn't have the luxury of a backup generator.
NMSU spokesman Justin Bannister said the outage, caused by an outdated and overloaded point of power distribution, affected the northeast area of campus, including the Pan American Center, Corbett Center Student Union and nearby dormitories.
"They spent most of the night working on it," Bannister said.
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Those buildings without a generator regained power about 11 p.m.
"This is an aging infrastructure issue," Bannister said. "It was also compounded by an increase load on that particular switch at that time."
Bannister said the the problem has been mitigated, but the infrastructure still needs improvement going forward.
"They don't believe it will happen again, immediately, but they're, they're working on more long term solutions," he said.
Inside the Pan American Center, the stadium lights slowly regained full strength. At 8:02 p.m., the public address announcer informed the fans that game play would resume.
New Mexico would go on to steal a 101-94 victory in the Battle of I-25.
In the second half, almost two hours after the power cut out, the PA announcer told the fans that the bathrooms were not in service except for emergency use.
Bannister explained that this was due to the power outage as well. The Pan American Center bathrooms are connected to a lift station, which collects then flushes sewage out. It is intended to save power under normal conditions. However, the backup generator couldn't power it.
Bannister said neither Corbett Center nor the dormitories, which do not have lift stations, had to suspend bathroom use.
The blackout also knocked out access to wifi inside the stadium. Aggies play-by-play radio broadcaster Jack Nixon resorted to calling the remainder of the game from his cell phone and the power outage prevented the game from being aired live on ESPN+.
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As fans left the stadium when the game ended after 10 p.m., they emerged into near complete darkness as streetlights were still out in the area.
Miranda Cyr, a Report for America corps member, can be reached at mcyr@lcsun-news.com or @mirandabcyr on Twitter. Show your support for the Report for America program at https://bit.ly/LCSNRFA.
This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Power outage darkens Pan Am Center, other buildings on NMSU campus
