By Tien Nguyen

The University View apartment complex in College Park lost power in both towers mid-afternoon on Sept. 25. Residents were forced to walk staircases, jump onto personal hotspots and navigate through hallways in the dark — among other bothersome efforts.

At first, Nico Valencia, a senior biological sciences major, did not believe his roommate when “she was talking about how the hallway was so scary.”

Both towers lost light when the power outage hit around 2:18 p.m. Apartment units got natural light from the sunshine peeking through the windows. Valencia described how other areas of the complex were not as lucky.

Valencia said he left his apartment when he noticed all of the lights flickering, giving the hallway a haunted look.

“Then I went down the elevators — it was pitch black in there,” he said.

Tower 1’s front elevators worked during the outage, said Sean Montatsky, a senior mechanical engineering major. But Tower 2’s elevators were down until Sunday, according to an email UView management distributed to Tower 2 residents. Tower 1 has 16 floors, whereas Tower 2 has 12.

Prince George’s County Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department vehicles were spotted at the complex at the time of the outage. Senior kinesiology major Francesca Tchatch, another roommate of Valencia’s, said she heard from a UView security guard that an individual was allegedly stuck in an elevator.

The correlation with rumor and the PG County Fire and EMS services remains unconfirmed by UView management; there has been no official communication from UView management regarding the alleged incident.

Access to the parking garage was also disabled, preventing cars from entering or exiting with their sensor-detected passes. 

Tower 1’s power returned at 4 p.m., including lights, Wi-Fi, elevator operations, refrigerator cooling and parking garage access. However, a failed transformer left Tower 2 without power for longer, according to UView management’s email. 

UView management confirmed that Pepco, the utility company providing for the complex, was “currently on-site performing the necessary repairs,” on Friday at 5:54 p.m. 

But restoration did not come until after the weekend, UView management confirmed in an email.

Valencia and Tchatch said they were already dealing with finicky Wi-Fi and lights in Tower 2 before the power outage. Valencia noted that the lights on their floor were flickering for a few days before they went out entirely.

Without Wi-Fi, students struggled to do their schoolwork, Tchatch expressed.

While Tower 1’s Wi-Fi was restored on Friday, WhiteSky, UView’s Internet service provider, was still working on restoring the Wi-Fi throughout the building Monday morning, UView management confirmed in an email to residents.

Tchatch felt privileged to have been able to complete her assignments through another roommate’s hotspot, something she said other residents were not able to do.

Tchatch celebrated her 21st birthday on Saturday. Party guests had to climb up five flights of stairs, and the delay in power restoration disrupted her plan to play music videos on the Roku TV for entertainment.

Instead, Tchatch said the group enjoyed an “analog game night,” playing card games to adapt to circumstances.

Montatsky, who was at WMUC radio station for his radio show when the outage hit, said, “The thing that popped into my head were, at the very least, all the perishables in the fridge and in the freezer.”

Food spoilage raised a potential problem for him and his roommates. The outage had paused refrigerator cooling; Montatsky’s roommate told their group chat to keep their refrigerator closed to prevent the cool air preserving their perishables from escaping.

“It was just so annoying,” Tchatch expressed about the power outage. “My birthday party was already so stressful because it was raining the whole day.” On top of that, the lack of elevator service was the “cherry on top.”

UView management has not responded to a request for comment.

Featured Image: University View apartment Building 1 in College, Park Maryland on Sept. 29, 2026. Photo by Vanessa Lim