By Daniel Opasinis and Edward Lander

Power has been restored after an outage saw the evacuation of Image Arts (IMA) this afternoon.

According to a TMU Safe alert issued at 3:36 p.m., all classes, labs and exams being held in the building were paused. 

The lights and coffee machines in Balzac’s Coffee Roasters had also shut down, resulting in an evacuation of the cafe.

Third-year film studies student Max Gundogdu was in “The Pit”—a social area in the basement of IMA—when the power went out. 

“We were doing this demo of loading the film into the camera, which you’re supposed to do in the dark, but we were doing it in the lights…as we were loading it, the lights went off, and we were like, ‘Oh my God, this is so perfect,’” Gundogdu said. 

IMA was one of three buildings running on generators after flooding in the basement of the Victoria Building during a Sept. 3 storm damaged a power supply, as previously reported by The Eyeopener.

On their website, Facilities Management and Development (FMD) said work was being done late last night to reconnect the affected buildings to the power grid. 

This involved a planned overnight shutdown from Oct. 6 at 10 p.m. to Oct. 7 at 6 a.m.

“During the shutdown, contractors will remove the temporary rental generators outside of IMA and VIC to reconnect the buildings to the City of Toronto power supply and repair damage to the electrical system,” they wrote.

It is unclear whether this afternoon’s outage was related to last night’s work. 

The Eye reached out to the university for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication. This story will be updated if comment is received.

Film studies student John Ormas was in his Microcinema class when he heard a “big noise” reverberate through the building. 

“I had a presentation to do, but I wasn’t able to do the presentation, so I don’t know what to do now,” he said.

Orman described a buzzing noise that could be heard in his classroom, followed by TMU Security escorting students out of the building.  

A TMU Safe Alert issued at 3:57 p.m. said power has been restored to the building.