Fire crews respond to the house fire on South 4th Street. Photo courtesy of WAVE.

This article was updated at 12:13 p.m. on March 23.

On Monday, March 23, Manual experienced a power outage. 

At 6:55 a.m., Principal Michael Newman sent an email to Manual families explaining that the school was experiencing a power outage and that the school day was still to flow as normally as possible. Newman was alerted by JCPS at about 5:30 a.m. about the outage that had been detected by both JCPS’ and LG&E’s fail-safe systems.

The outage affected Manual in multiple ways, from lights in classrooms to the Evolv weapon detection system. While the Evolv system was down, Manual began the controlled search method. This is where educators count a certain number of students and then randomly pick one to be searched. The number of students counted changes in order to ensure that students cannot figure out a pattern and avoid getting searched. 

“The Evolv system, obviously, without power, cannot work. However, we do have a protocol in place that is used only in situations where either an Evolv machine is broken or in an event where it’s just not functioning, like this power outage,” Newman said.

At 6:57 a.m., Newman updated families, writing that LG&E and the JCPS electrical team managed to restore electricity to both Manual and YPAS before the school day began. 

Then, at 7:40 a.m., Newman came over the Manual intercom to alert the students and faculty of a nearby house fire. While the fire was far enough from Manual for there to be no risk of damaging the school, educators were asked to close windows to stop smoke from entering the building. 

Manual RedEye spotted emergency responders on their way to the house fire at 7:45 a.m., as well as smoke coming north of 2nd Street. 

Emily Sales (English) ran to the main office to report the fire after being alerted of the smell and sight of smoke on 2nd Street.

“So I ran down there [the main office], but right when I got into the office was when Dr. Newman came over the announcement saying that there was a fire,” Sales said. 

To protect students from contaminated air, Manual opted to momentarily turn off the HVAC systems in both YPAS and the main building. At about 9:oo a.m., when the air had cleared, the HVAC systems were turned back on.

By 7:54 a.m., Manual’s WiFi was reported to be out. At 8:15 a.m., the WiFi had returned.

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