U Mass Blackout

Chaos descended on the University of Massachusetts (UMass) last week, as tour dormitories were blacked out for more than four hours by a mysterious power failure.

As some of the residents of John Adams John Quincy Adams and Washington Towers streamed outside, yelling and cheering, others dropped firecrackers, toilet paper, and flaming newspapers from their windows.

"It was pretty crazy out there," said one UMass police dispatcher, citing the newspapers thrown from the upper stories of one of the 20-floor buildings. "People go crazy," she added, noting that students often react this way to UMass's "periodic" blackouts. "But then they calm down," she said. --The Daily Collegian