Extended power outage in Williamsburg forces school cancellation

An extended power outage at Williamsburg Independent School forced the cancellation of classes Thursday.

Williamsburg Superintendent Denny Byrd said power near the school went out about 6:30 a.m. When contacted about the situation, Kentucky Utilities officials reportedly told him crews were working on the problem and the power should be restored by 8 a.m.

Faculty, staff and students arrived as scheduled. However, with no power, the students were moved into the gymnasium where emergency lighting was working.

With more daylight coming in, Byrd said the students were moved by grades into the outer classrooms where there was enough light to see.

In addition, school officials decided to allow students to contact their parents or guardians to inform them that, if they chose to, they could come to school and sign out their children for the remainder of the day.

Children whose parent or guardian could not be reached, remained at school until normal dismissal time.

"We fed them lunch and sent them home on their regular bus routes," Byrd said.

Power was restored to the building before 11 a.m.

Byrd said in this situation, the best option was to keep the students at the school. However, the school board has other contingency plans which involve bussing the students to the civic center or the Rawlings Center at University of the Cumberlands.

"The civic center didn’t have electricity, either," Byrd said. "We had the busses ready to begin transporting the students to UC when the power came back on."

Byrd said he will be in contact with the Kentucky Department of Education to determine what, if anything, the school system must do about the lost instructional time. Byrd noted, there are about nine more days of instructional time built into the school calendar that required by the state.

"This is a rare situation," Byrd said the extended power outage during school hours," "Our first priority was to take care of the kids."