A power outage that hit the central part of Santa Ana left campus dark for about 15 minutes on Wednesday afternoon.
The outage began at about 3:50 p.m. when a Southern California Edison substation was momentarily interrupted, Edison officials said. Both Santa Ana College and Centennial Education Center were within the affected area.
Power remained on in the A building because of a diesel generator.
As soon as the power went out, some students began to gather outside of classrooms waiting for directions, while others went directly to the Administration building to ask whether or not classes were canceled. Staff and students in the library sat in the dark waiting for the computers to turn back on. Some cheered once the lights returned.
Classes were not officially canceled but an Engish class in the I Building was sent home. Other teachers continued to lecture through the outage. Students who were gathered outside went back to their classes after power was restored.
Edison officials were not immediately aware of what caused the outage, but said over 700 customers in the city remained without power in the early evening.
School officials wrote in a Rave alert that the outage is being checked by utility companies and that all areas of SAC and CEC were cleared by campus safety officers. Normal campus operations resumed by 5 p.m.
Updated 7:04 p.m. with Southern California Edison response