By Jennie Jasperson, Staff Writer
Everyone remembers the lights suddenly going out during first period on Friday, Feb. 6. “I was taking a math test and all of a sudden, everything just went dark,” recalls Jason Deng (‘16). What ensued for the next two hours was confusion and immense boredom, brought on by what appeared to be a lack of communication with teachers and students.
The power outage occurred due to a SMUD substation being struck by lightning during a heavy rainstorm. Not only did the power go out at McClatchy, the rest of the Land Park area was without power for several hours. Sacramento Municipal Utility District’s webpage indicated more than eight thousand people in their Sacramento County region were without power just after 9 a.m. Friday. The majority were reports from the Land Park and South Sacramento areas. SMUD reported that the power was finally restored around 11:30 a.m.
That might have been reassuring for students and teachers to know at the time of the power outage at school. Students were stuck in their classrooms and not allowed to leave, with the exception of going to use the bathroom. Teachers relied on updates from campus security monitors. Many students remember the frustration of not really knowing exactly what was happening. “My classroom was all the way in the D-wing during the power outage, and the campus security only came to give updates occasionally. Even then, the updates gave no actual information as to what had happened,” says Chloe Collins (‘16).
Many students also seemed to hear the rumour that if the power remained out for a certain period of time, school was supposed to be dismissed. “Yes, I heard that if the power was out for longer than an hour then all students would be let out,” says Lorena Garay (‘16). Principal Peter Lambert quickly dismissed that saying, “That’s not true, we would never dismiss students only to release them into a storm.”
When asked about safety protocols during events such as a power outage Principal Lambert explained, “Luckily, we had just reviewed safety drills a couple days before. During the power outage, it was important that students stayed in their classrooms. We had campus monitors stationed around the school, and teachers had their own safety backpacks with flashlights.”
Even with all of these safety protocols, there were still many student complaints about not being able to be dismissed from school early. Once the power had been out for over an hour, many students began calling parents to come pick them up. This resulted in a surge of parents arriving in the office, all trying to find their kids. This was a difficult task for both the parents, and the attendance office, due to the fact that the phones weren’t working and there was no real way of direct communication. However, Principal Lambert said, “There was no need for parents to come pick kids up. It was much safer to remain at school than to go back out into the storm.”
Despite this, the front of the school was soon filled with parents trying to find a staff member to locate their child. “There weren’t any organized lines, and a campus monitor even refused to help me at first,” says an anonymous parent of a McClatchy student. Furthermore, the parking in front of the school quickly turned to chaos. With no more parking spots available, many people were forced to park illegally on the side of the road.
When asked about the process of parents trying to pick up their kids, Principal Lambert responded, “I think things went very well. Everything ran smoothly. With each situation, there’s always something new to learn.”
It was certainly a relief when the power finally came back on and school was able to resume as normal. This was quite an experience and fortunately, everyone made it through safe and sound. As with situations like these the most important thing is that students were able to remain calm and get through the two hours of darkness.