Classes were canceled and students were asked to evacuate when the Cerritos College campus suffered a power outage on Monday, March 11.

The problem has now been resolved and everything is under control.

The text message alert, which was sent out at about 9 p.m., read, “Cerritos College has experienced an electrical outage. Please leave buildings in a safe and orderly manner.”

David Moore, director of physical plant and construction services, noted that the power outage was a result of a cable failure.

“It was a high voltage line. We’re talking about a pretty big line. And one of them failed, part of the leg failed … so we’re very fortunate that we were able to get the power back on campus.”

Students who had evening classes were confronted with this interference, as the power could not be restored within the time frame of said classes.

Moore said, “I think the (campus) police did a great job in ordering the evacuation. There was no way we could restore the power that quickly to keep the classes going.”

He continued to reiterate how fortunate the situation turned out to be, as “the loop system” cable that powers the buildings were able to get back up and running shortly early Tuesday morning.

Erika Gonzalez, Culinary Arts major, was here during the blackout.

“Well it was the middle of class when the lights completely shutdown; Went from light to pitch black in seconds.

“The class had to be escorted outside, then a couple of security guards came by to check up on us.”

To receive text message alerts, like the one that was sent out for this situation, go to www.cerritos.us