Power outage plunges downtown Tallahassee into darkness

Much of downtown Tallahassee, including the state Capitol, and surrounding areas of the city were hit with a major power outage on a perfect weather day around 4 p.m. Sept. 16 that trapped people in elevators and caused alarms to blare.

According to the city’s power outage map, 21 separate outages were reported as of 4:45 p.m., and as of 5 p.m., the map showed 6,194 accounts still had no power. Florida A&M students and staff reported their main campus also had no electricity.

The Sept. 16 blackout comes about a week after the power outage at Doak Campbell Stadium that led to a nearly two-hour delay of Florida State football’s game against Southern Methodist University. That blackout was attributed to “an underlying electrical fault” that caused a main breaker to “fail beyond repair,” a FSU spokesperson said.

A Facebook post by City Utilities, shortly after the blackout started, said “crews are on site at substation 6, which services the area impacted. They have identified the issue and are making repairs.”

Meantime, Tallahassee firefighters and EMS were assisting with calls from people stuck in elevators and responding to alarms that went off, according to another update.

Social media posts showed photos of what appeared to be police directing traffic on North Monroe Street heading into Midtown: “Beware: Every light on Monroe is out!” one person wrote.

Traffic lights also were not working along Gaines Street between downtown and CollegeTown during the evening commute, snarling traffic. “What’s going on with Tallahassee and electricity?” another person posted.

The lights were reported to be back on inside the Capitol around 5:15 p.m., though many state workers already had left for the day shortly after the power went out.

And office buildings downtown began seeing power returned by 5:45 p.m. though the cause of the outage still had not been explained.

By 6 p.m., the outage map was down to 34 accounts without power.

Were you or someone you know stuck in an elevator or otherwise caught up in the downtown Tallahassee blackout? Send us an email at news@tallahassee.com with your story.