Widespread power outage causes confusion at Lynn schools

LYNN – Power has been restored to all schools in the city after a hectic morning that had some parents scrambling.
A widespread power outage hit several areas of Lynn shortly before 6 a.m., affecting seven schools including Classical High School, Breed Middle School, Pickering Middle School, Sisson Elementary School, Lincoln-Thompson Elementary School, Sewell-Anderson Elementary School and Callahan Elementary School.
Six of the seven schools were back in session by 8 a.m., with Classical the only exception. Superintendent Nicholas Kostan said the decision to close Classical was made early on because of the high number of students at the school, who are also older and able to return home on their own.
National Grid spokeswoman Debbie Stone said an underground cable fault at a substation in Salem was to blame for the outage, which affected only the Lynn area. Power was restored shortly before 8 a.m.
“We were actually able to restore service rather quickly by switching our customers to different lines,” Stone said. “We are in the process of repairing the problem, but obviously our number one priority is getting service back to our customers as quickly as possible.”
Confused parents were not notified of the power outages via the district’s Connect ED phone system, and began dropping off students at school at the normal start times.
“My kids have a snow day,” joked parent Maureen Gilhooley, who has students at the Pickering and Sisson schools. “It was not a big deal, really, everyone was just confused. We didn’t even know the power was out until we got to the school.”
Kostan said the timing of the power outage made it difficult to manage, as information on the scope of the problem was not immediately available. He began to learn about schools one-by-one, and said at first it appeared to be an isolated incident affecting one area.
“I wasn’t even aware there was a problem until I received a call from (Principal Fred DuPuis) over at Breed around quarter to seven,” Kostan said. “At that time we had no reports from anyone else, and Breed is a school that has problems with power outages so we thought maybe it was just an accident on Walnut Street. When I was principal there that was something that did happen from time to time. So the timing of it was difficult for us because we did not know how widespread it was.”
Kostan said by the time he learned of how many schools were affected, it was too late to call off the busses and students had already begun walking to school, rendering the Connect ED system useless.
Instead, principals greeted parents outside of the schools and explained the situation.
Principals gave parents the option to take their children home or allow them to stay at school until the power returned. Once power was restored, the department sent out a Connect ED message notifying parents that they could return their children to school.
“I was standing out front explaining the situation to parents. The kids who were dropped off were taken in to the building, and those that were still with their parents were given the option to go home,” said Callahan Principal Ed Turmenne. “The power came back on around 8 a.m., which worked out well for us because that is just about the regular time that we start classes.”