Maintenance hole explosion at Texas Tech University causes fires, outages and cancels classes

LUBBOCK, Texas — An explosion inside a maintenance hole on the Texas Tech University campus in Lubbock set off fires and power outages, leading school officials to issue evacuation orders for several buildings and cancel classes for the rest of the week, university police said.

The explosion happened Wednesday evening at the Engineering Key section of campus, which was evacuated.

“I heard an explosion and then saw a smoke ring, almost like a cartoon or something,” doctoral degree student Robert Gauthreaux III told KCBD-TV. “It traveled about 200 feet in the air.”

Gauthreaux said he went inside the architecture building, which lost power. He said he and others tried to help someone who was trapped inside an elevator.

Power was being shut down to the entire campus while repairs were underway, said Caitlynn Jeffries, a spokesperson for the university’s police department. She asked that all public and unofficial personnel avoid campus.

“You can go ahead and go home for spring break. We are closing school down for the next couple days,” Jeffries said at a news media briefing.

Firefighters responded to campus at about 7 p.m. for a possible gas leak, Lubbock Fire Rescue Capt. Jon Tunnell said at the briefing. They found “multiple manhole covers with active fire and smoke issuing from them,” he said.

No injuries were reported, Tunnell said.

An alert from the university sent to the campus community before the news conference had described the explosion as occurring at a substation.

Videos circulating on social media and TV stations showed a heavy presence of firefighters on campus and fire and smoke coming out of at least one maintenance hole cover.

It wasn’t clear what might have caused the explosion.

There are more than 40,000 students at Texas Tech and the school sits on 1,800 acres in West Texas.