On Nov. 9, Lafayette High School’s lights went out due to a power issue with Ameren UE. Classes in interior rooms were evacuated to the Commons, and many teachers were forced to continue their lectures in the halls. The power turned back on around 11:15 a.m., only 15 minutes before students were going to be dismissed from school for the day.
“Information we received was that a utility pole had been knocked down close to here, which knocked out power for about 12,000-13,000 residents including Lafayette and Green Pines Elementary School,” Principal John Shaughnessy said.
There was much confusion directly after the power went out, leading students and staff to come up with theories as to why the school was dark. Some believed it had to do with the weather.
“I have no clue why the power went out, other than the fact that it’s been pretty windy,” sophomore Chloe Tiemann said.
Others believed magic had something to do with the outage.
“Why did the power go out? I have no idea. I have a theory that my friend’s magic made an evil spirit do this, I’m not even kidding,” senior Anthony Orso said.
Social studies teacher Vince DeBlasi had an idea that Ameren was involved.
“I’ve been told that there is a problem with Ameren. It’s funny, because this morning when I was watching the news, I saw there was this elementary school downtown that couldn’t go in today because their power went out. I swear to you that I was thinking, what if that happened to us today?,” DeBlasi said.
DeBlasi’s class was moved to the Commons, where he heard of other teacher’s predicaments due to the outage.
“Kari Peters had a test today. The second she passed it out, the lights went off. I told her to joke around and tell her kids that they would do the test out here, but obviously she can’t,” he said.
Though many of the teachers were unable to continue their normal lesson, students found ways to scholastically occupy themselves.
“I am going to read 1984,” Tiemann said.
“I am doing all my homework now,” junior Briauna Carmichael said.
When asked if they believed school would be let out, most students were hopeful. But, the power came back about 15-20 minutes before school was to be dismissed early for the day.
“The power could have been out until 3 p.m., and we were making arrangements to stay here as long as we could and when we finally got all of our plans together, the power did come back on. We had plans to dismiss at 11:30. We were close to getting out,” Shaughnessy said.
The outage led to a major disruption of the school day, but all and all, Shaughnessy said Lafayette handled the outage well.
“Our students and staff did a really nice job of remaining clam and organized. We did the best we could,” Shaughnessy said.
