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Power outage cuts short OES classes
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Posted on Aug 26 2005
The Oleai Elementary School suspended classes yesterday and dismissed its students early due to a power outage in Oleai, Garapan and Koblerville.
School principal Celina Romolar-Route said the power outage was unannounced and was not included in the CUC load shedding schedule that was published in the newspapers.
She said the power went out at exactly 11:45am, just before classes took their lunch break.
Romolar-Route said she immediately called the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.’s customer service section and was told that the power outage also affected villages in Koblerville and downtown Garapan.
When she asked why Oleai was affected, considering that the area was not included in yesterday’s load shedding schedule, she was told that the outage would only take 30 minutes and would soon go back to normal. The customer service agent reportedly told Romolar-Route that the outage was islandwide.
Despite the assurances, Romolar-Route said that power was still out after an hour, forcing her to dismiss classes early.
“We were not informed about the power outage and CUC must warn us so that our classroom instruction will not be interrupted,” she said.
Public School System associate commissioner for administrative service David M. Borja said that Romolar-Route had called him, requesting for the early dismissal of classes in her school. Borja said Koblerville Elementary School was also affected by the outage. He said only OES called for the early dismissal of classes yesterday. PSS had to contact the bus drivers to pick the children up from school.
Borja said this was the first time that an outage affected a school since load shedding started in July.
Romolar-Route said she had to dismiss classes early because the school’s water pump is dependent on the power to operate. She said the school cannot allow students to remain within school premises when there’s no water available for them.
She said the power went back on by 1:15pm.
Koblerville Elementary School did not dismiss classes because power went back at 12:59pm, according to principal Eric Evangelista.
