A power outage interrupted classroom activities for about an hour Monday morning in several campus buildings.

David Miller, utilities director of Faculties Planning and Management, said the outage hit at about 11:15 a.m., when a maintenance worker unplugged a welder outlet that had shorted out.

This caused one of the boilers to shut down. Without the boiler, power had to be reduced in order to even out the balance of the energy flow. Some of the breakers to various buildings were then thrown to reduce the probability of damaging equipment.

Buildings without power included Bessey Hall, Catt Hall, East Hall, Engineering Extension Services Building, Fire Service Education Building, Farm House Museum, Hamilton Hall, Heady Hall, Horticulture Hall and Greenhouse, Landscape Architecture Building and Ross Hall.

These buildings were chosen to be cut off because their breakers were most easily accessible.

“Time was of the essence,” Miller said. “It all happened very quickly, so we shut off the ones that we had control over.”

Several classes were not able to proceed because of the outage.

Thomas Beell, a professor of journalism and mass communication, had class in Hamilton Hall at the time of the outage. He was showing a slide show. He didn’t get to finish.

“I thought it was just a bulb gone bad on the overhead, because it was already dark, but the students said the power had shut off,” Beell said. “I filled time by telling some stories and jokes but I let them out early because it was too dark.”

In Ross Hall, some students were briefly trapped in the elevator. Many assignments were also lost on computers in the Ross Hall labs. Some students had to use paper clips to remove their disks from the computers.

“It really took the energy out of everyone when the lights went off,” said Kim Smith, also a professor of journalism and mass communication.

Computers in the Horticulture Building were also a concern.

“We had a battery back-up computer server so we survived it OK,” said Michael Chaplin, chairman of the Department of Horticulture.

Officials restored power shortly after noon.