MANCHESTER
Manchester Elementary School students had an unexpected day off
from classes today (Thursday) due to a power outage.
The outage was discovered by school district maintenance staff
early in the morning. Puget Sound Energy workers arrived to help
determine the cause and found that the building needed some fuses
and parts of a transformer, said Aimee Warthen, the district’s
director of community relations.
The electrical company with whom the district contracts estimated
it would take about two hours to restore power to the school
“We made the call about 6:30 the school would be closed,” said
Warthen. “It would have been dreadful to have students and staff
arrive and have no power, no phones, no heat. It would have been an
awful environment for learning.”
Staff was notified via the district’s phone tree. Families of the
school’s 450 students were notified by the district’s auto-dialer
system, which has been in place at South Kitsap School since last
spring. The district also sent out a public service announcement
through the Washington State emergency communication system.
Power was restored by 9:10 a.m., but by then it was too late to
hold school, said Warthen.
Speaking of South Kitsap Reporter Chris Henry talks about life in the county seat of Port Orchard and surrounding areas.
