Administrators are investigating the causes of a 30-minute power outage at 10:37 a.m. that disrupted finals this morning, and affected most of northeast Palo Alto.
"Something big happened, we just don’t know what," Assistant Principal Chuck Merritt said.
The power outage also affected Stanford, the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, Town and Country Village, the PAUSD District Office, and other Palo Alto schools. The district office was also without power temporarily, until the emergency generators picked up.
This is the second time in two years that there has been a significant disruption during sixth period finals, as last year a false fire alarm evacuated the entire school.
Many classes were stuck in the dark, temporarily unable to work on finals. The English classes struggled to write final essays in the half-light, while some teachers in the history department moved desks outside so students could write in better light. For many classes whose finals included presentations, or required electronics, finals were temporarily impeded.
"We need the computers to work, and the power is out, so we can’t do anything," senior Cameron Tacklind said. Tacklind was about to present his project for Engineering Technology on 3-D modeling.
The power came back on at 11:07 a.m..
"Presentations are back on schedule," said senior Clark Willson who was also about to present for Engineering Tech. "But we’ll have to skip a few people because of the time constraints."
Voice reporters Jennifer Audet, Stephi Chin and Christina Chon contributed to this story.