Principal Alan Goodwin drove up to a pitch-black Whitman campus Sept. 10, just 30 minutes before masses of teenagers were due to arrive. The emergency generators weren’t working, the phone lines were dead and the power was out within a one-block radius.

Because students and staff weren’t allowed into the building, they were ushered into the Jerome M. Marco stadium until the power came back on at 7:45 a.m.

“Pepco ensured us that the electricity would be back on by nine o’clock at the latest, so we knew that school wasn’t going to close,” Goodwin said. “I don’t know if there is any magic number of hours for the superintendent to close schools. I would say that if the electricity wasn’t ready by lunch time we would’ve been dismissed.”

Initially, Goodwin called the school’s supervisor, security and maintenance staff. He then instructed some staff members to stand in front of the school and near the busses to tell students to report to the stadium.

The power outage, which lasted about an hour and 20 minutes, occurred because of a fallen power line, Goodwin said.

Goodwin sent an e-mail to WhitNet around 9:00 a.m. to inform parents of the power outage.