Part of Rutgers, NJIT Campuses Lose Power Friday

A building at NJIT and buildings at Rutgers-Newark were without power Friday morning following what witnesses described as an explosion.

Workers afterward were repairing an underground circuit servicing the area, a spokesperson for PSE&G told Patch.

Smoke was reportedly seen pouring from a manhole at Warren Street and Martin Luther King Boulevard this morning. The outage began around 9:30 am, said Kristine Snodgrass, a PSE&G spokesperson.

Penn Station, located several blocks away, was also briefly affected, a NJ Transit spokesman said this morning. But the outage there involved only a small part of the building and only caused “the lights to flicker for a few seconds,” the spokesman said. There was no effect on service, he added.

It was unclear when power would be restored, Snodgrass also said.