A number of river Houses and other Harvard buildings suffered power outages yesterday afternoon, beginning around 4:45 p.m. and continuing for almost four hours.

The outages--which may have been caused by a power surge--were the most widespread in recent memory.

"This has never happened on this scale to my knowledge," said University spokesperson Joe Wrinn.

Wrinn said the DeWolfe housing complex, Eliot, Leverett, Mather and Quincy Houses all experienced some loss of power, as did the Kennedy School of Government, the Taubman Center and Rosovsky Hall.

Students also reported electrical problems at Kirkland and Winthrop Houses.

Wrinn said University crews first determined that the electric lines connecting the buildings were not damaged and, subsequently, went "building to building," flipping circuit breakers and restoring power.

"All power was on by 8:30," he said.

Wrinn said the outage most likely originated at the Holyoke Center, where a surge of electricity in one of the power grids might have sent each of the affected buildings more volts than their circuits could handle. The cause of the surge, he said, is unknown.

Loss of electricity in the kitchens at Eliot, Kirkland and Leverett Houses forced students to explore alternative dinner options.

At Kirkland, the adjacent dining hall remained well-lit, while the kitchen itself had no power.

"I want to eat," said Alia Ornstein '02 of Kirkland House. "I guess we'll go over to Lowell."

The outage also affected the activities of the dining hall's workers.

"We shipped our staff down to Lowell," said Edward A. Salerno, Kirkland dining hall's manager. "The food as well."