It was the night the lights went out in Oxford.

After the city went dark, city services kept residents updated primarily through social media.

The Oxford Electric Department tweeted and said the source of the power failure was at the substation on Old Taylor Road. Less than an hour and a half later, The Oxford Police Department tweeted and said “Power is starting to be restored slowly but surely.”

Sophomore business major Marcus Gilbert was an hour into his business law class when the city-wide power outage hit campus around 7:30 p.m. Thursday night. 

“The lights just went off,” Gilbert said. “I’m just going to go (home) and get some food.”

At 7:28 p.m., the OPD tweeted “There has been a massive city wide power outage. Unknown on reason right now.”

OPD also tweeted and warned drivers to treat all intersections as four-way stops until traffic lights resumed blinking.

Across campus and throughout the town, only a few windows were lit. In the J.D. Williams Library, students began packing up their laptops and notebooks and filed out the door. Some stayed and used the small pot lights ahead, which remained on. 

In the library Starbucks, the remaining baristas gave out small cups of drip coffee to the remaining customers in line at the time of the outage, but were told to lock up and leave work. 

At 7:44 p.m. the Oxford Electric Company confirmed they were looking for the cause and would restore power as soon as possible.