Dear Texas Tech Family,
Wednesday (March 12) evening, an explosion occurred in a tunnel, causing a fire. The fire spread, leading to outages on the Texas Tech campus. Electricity and gas were shut down across both the Texas Tech and Health Sciences Center campuses in Lubbock to keep the fire from spreading further. The fire was successfully extinguished Wednesday evening.
Campus infrastructure is being thoroughly checked for safety as power comes back online following the shutdown. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
To allow for the thorough check of campus infrastructure and ensure our campus community's safety, we will close campus on Thursday, March 13, and Friday, March 14. All classes will be canceled, and all non-essential personnel should work remotely if they are able to. This includes Texas Tech University System Administration employees. Human Resources will follow up with an email regarding work arrangements.
We want to share our deepest gratitude to our campus emergency response teams, as well as the City of Lubbock, Lubbock Fire Rescue, Lubbock Police Department, Lubbock Power & Light, Atmos Energy and others, for ensuring the safety of our campus community.
Sincerely,
Ronald Hendrick
Provost & Senior Vice President, Texas Tech University