Updated: Power outage causes short day at La Cañada High School

La Cañada High School students had a short and sweet school day Monday, as a power outage prompted administrators to turn students loose at 11 a.m.

A nearby transformer failed at about 12:30 a.m. Monday, according to Southern California Edison, knocking out power to the school and more than 1,200 other customers. Power to all customers except one returned by 11 a.m. Monday. Electricity was restored to the last customer, a residence, at around 9 p.m.

La Cañada High School Principal Ian McFeat said the power outage made life difficult in myriad ways, prompting the decision to go to a shortened schedule.

“There’s no computer services, no electronic services, no air conditioning and no attendance system, since that’s all electronic,” McFeat said.

Instead of the normal 56-minute periods, classes were abbreviated to 25 minutes each.

As they walked to the bus stop Monday morning, La Cañada High sophomores Terry Ha and Ryan Kim said they were relieved to get a reprieve from a couple of scheduled quizzes, and McFeat said other students said they were happy for another opportunity to study for exams.

The day went as well as could be expected, McFeat said, though he was glad to see power return.

“All in all it was uneventful, but we’re glad to have [the power] back on so we can get some work done,” he said Monday afternoon.

Edison spokeswoman Marissa Castro-Salvati said further repairs are needed on the underground circuit that failed. Edison will coordinate with the city on when to schedule a planned power outage of around two hours, she said.
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