Sudden Power Outage Doesn’t Stop HHS

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When the town of Hopkinton suddenly lost power at the start of fourth period, the high school tried to keep things running smoothly. All around the school, teachers and students adjusted to the lack of power—classes continued as planned.

Senior Victoria Kray was in a study enjoying her lunch when the power went out. She described how the chaos of other students scared her at first.

Natural lighting floods the atrium as Seniors Michael Guisti and Linnea Pappas-Byers walk back to class after lunch. They discuss how even the teachers don’t seem to know what’s going on.

“When the lights were off and people were going through the hallways, people were screaming and yelling,” Kray said.

Senior Linnea Pappas-Byers was in Mandarin, and her class was unsure what was happening at first.

“We genuinely thought that somebody was trying to break into the school because we didn’t know that the power generator takes time to go back on,” Pappas-Byers said. “We were expecting it to kick on immediately.”

Teacher Colleen Gianino was in the middle of a Digital Art class. But without power, the students couldn’t use the desktops. She had to give the students other activities, but they stayed productive.

“It’s kind of fun watching our class sitting around playing games because how does digital art go on without power? Some students are finishing matting their artwork, which is what we had planned anyways,” Gianino said. “It doesn’t seem like we’re deterred.”

Another teacher, Douglas Scott, who usually teaches robotics and engineering classes, was in the middle of his prep period. He decided to observe other classes’ activities.

Senior Julien Fernandez enjoys the pizza the school provided for lunch. “I saw one kid dab for a slice of pizza,” Fernandez said.

“What was really interesting about the power outage was HHS TV class was in,” Scott said. “Mr. Cozzens sent the students out to document it. So they went out and recorded some of the happenings.”

Principal Evan Bishop came on the loudspeaker to calm any nerves and instructed that classes should resume as usual.

He later came on to announce that third and fourth lunches were moved up and that the school would be providing pizza from Bills Pizzeria due to the lack of hot food in the cafeteria. The pizza supply was quickly depleted, and some students were left without a lunch.

Even with few slip-ups, the school was able to adapt quickly to the unexpected power outage. The resilience of both staff and students helped the school day finish strong.