University of Oregon emergency alerts today

It’s not yet clear what’s happening on the UO campus this morning (beyond a rally scheduled for 11;30 am in regard to shake up in the diversity office) but UO emergency alerts are warning students to stay away from the Health Center and the latest alert says Agate is closed between 13th and 15the avenues. Another alert told students and faculty that there are intermittended power outages across campus. The Daily Emerald is reporting that “A University police spokesman said that explosions were heard near the Walton Complex. Smoke was reported to be coming from around the maintenance tunnels.”

Updates to come.

Update: KVAL is on the scene (we don’t come out til Thursday, by which time this will be old news, but exlosions are bread and butter for the TV folks): “Employees told KVAL News that they believe it was because of a pipe leak of some kind inside the building.”

Update: The R-G writes, “The explosions and smoke are ‘likely’ a result of a malfunction in a maintenance tunnel near the health center and the Walton residence hall complex, UO police spokesman Kelly McIver said.”

Update: The Daily Emerald is reporting it appears to be a transformer that blew. Accounts differ as to what parts of campus might have lost power in addition to some of the residence halls. The Em has some nice photos of firefighters and smoke.

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