The Mount Vernon Campus lost power Monday because of an unknown off campus issue, a University official said Monday afternoon.

University Spokeswoman Michelle Sherrard there is no estimate on when power might be restored to the campus but Pepco officials are currently working to restore power. She did not know when the outage started or what Pepco is doing to identify the problem but added that Ames Dining Hall would be open to serve students.

“Ames is open and offering a limited menu,” Sherrard said in an e-mail. “They are doing manual transactions with GWorld.”

The outage did not affect GWorld card readers in residence halls so student still need to swipe to gain access to residence halls, Sherrard said.

This is not the first power outage for Mount Vernon; in September of 2008 the campus experienced two back-to-back power failures in the span of a week.