The school was plunged into darkness for more than an hour this morning due to a transformer failure nearby, resulting in the disruption of most of first block.
The lights went out shortly before the 7:40 bell, after several shorter outages in the midst of a lightening storm. The blackout, which extended to several other buildings in the area, triggered confusion among teachers and students. Teachers and administrators soon ushered students into their first-block classes with instructions to wait.
There were only a few emergency lights with few backup generators, leading to fears that cafeteria workers would not be able to prepare lunch. That, Assistant Principal Mr. Greg Kuhn said, would mean that students would have to be sent home.
In the meantime, teachers and students had to make do without power. Some classes, such as those involving computers, could not proceed normally. Many teachers, however, simply adapted their lesson plans to compensate for reduced lighting.
“Fortunately for us we were able to just keep on rolling,” Mr. Wes Curtis (VA), who taught a 3-D art class first block, said. “Had it been any other block we would have been in trouble, because we need the darkroom. [But] what we did did not require power. It was kind of a bonding experience; it kept up a nice level of energy.”
“You don’t need power to talk in Spanish,” Ms. Ana Castro (Spanish) said. “We performed conversations about spring break . . . we did fine.”
Ms. Carole Sanders’ (English), in whose classroom one light was inexplicably functional, also taught class normally. “Instead of writing things on the board, we were talking about it collectively,” she said.
At around 8:50, LG&E crews finished repairing the disabled transformer, and power came back on. Mr. Wooldridge gave announcements an hour later than usual, and the block schedule proceeded as normal. Additional storms are expected this afternoon and evening.
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Photos by Alexa Pence and Jackie Leachman and Alexis Weaver
