Power went out in parts of campus and the Charleston area Wednesday, but a cause had not been determined at press time.

Lee Morris, a media relations spokesman for Ameren CIPS, said the power in several locations went out 3:09 p.m. Wednesday. A fuse on a transformer located on south 12th Street blew out, causing a loud boom and a spark. The outage affected 229 customers.

Dan Ensign, captain of the Charleston fire department, said firefighters were called to the power station and arrived at 3:14 p.m., but crews from CIPS were already on the scene and trying to find the source of the problem.

Lee said power was out for about 45 minutes and restored to buildings in three stages. Previous fuse blowouts have been attributed to small animals getting caught in the power station wires, but Lee said that was an unlikely cause for this outage.

Some buildings, including Pemberton Hall, Old Main, Blair Hall, the University Police Department, Health Service and Buzzard Hall were without power for a full 45 minutes. Other buildings, including Tarble Arts Center, Thomas, Taylor, Stevenson and Carman halls, the Counseling Center and Ninth Street Hall experienced a flickering outage where the electricity turned off, but returned seconds later.

The electricity flickered in Carman Hall but one elevator did not reset properly, trapping two people for 20 minutes. The riders were rescued by a university electrician at about 3:40 p.m., said Doug Howell, resident director for Carman Hall.