Late Tuesday night the east side of Bloomington was left in the dark. Students drove through unlit streets when power was knocked out in residential areas and businesses located east of Third Street past College Mall Road. Workers for Cinergy were made aware of the problem about 9:30 p.m. and patroled a five-mile radius searching for a problem.\nA spokeswoman for Cinergy said the extent of the entire damage is initially unknown.\n"That whole area is out," she said after the blackout. "Men are still searching for the problem." Sophomore Marissa Treasure was in Jiffy Treet on Third Street when the power went out.\n"We were getting ready to order ice cream and all of the sudden the lights shut off," she said. "The whole area went dark -- Taco Bell, K-Mart and street lights -- everything was out." \nStudents whose houses and apartments were affected piled by the group into the \nSteak 'N' Shake on College Mall Road, which had not lost its power.\nCinergy worker Chris Ayers said although he didn't know when the lights initially went out, wherever the fault is the company would work on repairing it.\n"We usually drive around the affected area looking for anything, a fault, something that can be seen right away," he said. "But we didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Most of the time it's something we can see, but this time it just wasn't."\nAyers and co-worker Sam Higgins went their separate ways waiting for a test \nfrom headquarters to find where the problems was.\n"We think the initial problem is out of the way, so we're going to light this\nline up to see where the problem is," Higgins said. The power line is hooked up to a telephone that sends a signal to look for a fault. \nSparks lit the blackened sky on Smith Road past Morningside Drive where Ayers was patrolling.\n"If the line sparks that means that's where the fault can be found," Ayers said. "Wherever that fault is, that's where the repairs begin. It can be anything from a line down to a broken insulator, we'll just have to wait and see."\nHiggins received a call for Ayers saying he saw even more sparks by the Shell gas station on Third Street. As of press time, Ayers suited up with rubber protective gear and boosted himself to reach the powerline to begin inspection. \nBoth workers anticipated the problem would be corrected in a couple of hours as of 11:30 p.m. Tuesday. \nWhile traffic in the area was sporadic during the power outage, occasional bouts of heavy traffic led cars to proceed with caution. In a couple of instances, cars turning out of business parking lots and those traveling east on Third Street came close to colliding. A dispatcher for Bloomington Police Department said as of 11:30 p.m. no accident calls had been received.\n-- Contact Campus Editor Mallory Simon at mgsimon@indiana.edu.
\nSamg Higgins talks on his cell phone verifying where the power disruption occured late Tuesday night.
