For Dr. Tatiana Karmanova, Director of the International Language Resource Center, Monday morning didn’t smell very good.At approximately 8 a.m. power outages hit the Center, as well as other areas of Missouri Southern, causing a power outage thats toll is not yet known.”We are still assessing [possible damage],” said Ken Kennedy, director of public safety. For Karmanova, though, it seemed more serious. The language laboratory, which houses a bank of 29 computers smelled strongly of burning rubber.”I wish we had windows, she said. “They (the Joplin Fire Department) were asking for windows. But they turned on the air to get rid of the smell.”There was no smoke or fire, but we just installed that lab a year and a half ago.”According to Bob Harrington, director of the physical plant, the outages were from a small leaf fire sparked from one of the meters on the north side of Spiva Library. University officials thought this might the result of Empire District Electric rerouting power to the Billingsly Student Center. The rerouting is necessary to facilitate the move of the bookstore over the holiday break.Harrington said local utilities are on campus to check for any further problems. Harrington also said half the phones on campus are currently down–including his own.

Alexandra Nicolas and Nathan Carter contributed to this report.The Chart will follow up on the story as more information becomes available.