Morning power outage closes Neelin
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A Brandon high school was closed Monday morning after a power outage affected part of the city.
École secondaire Neelin High School was closed in the morning, but afternoon classes went ahead after power was restored.
Power lines came down on a residential street in the Trinity area just before 8:15 a.m., leaving about 1,300 homes and businesses without power until 10:20 a.m., Manitoba Hydro said on Monday.
“The decision was made to close the school for the time that the utility was out and with the anticipation that hydro would be restored and classes could resume in the afternoon,” Brandon School Division Supt. Mathew Gustafson told the Sun.
The estimated return for power was 11:30 a.m., which would have been too long to ensure the Grade 9-12 school was “a safe environment,” Gustafson said, noting that conducting classes and accessing some areas of the school, such as washrooms, would have been difficult.
“We only close a school if necessary and after the assessment deems that it’s safer to close the school. In this case, it was. It’s the length of time that the hydro would be out and the impact that it has within the school,” he said.
“So, it’s a number of things, like how many rooms don’t have exterior windows? How long do we anticipate the emergency lighting to be able to go on battery? There’s a number of factors that go into that assessment.”
The assessment is part of BSD’s risk response process that includes communicating effectively with parents and students.
Neelin was the only school affected by the outage, Gustafson said, adding he wasn’t sure how many students were already at the school when classes were cancelled. While classes start shortly before 9 a.m., some students arrive early for practices, student groups or other reasons.
The downed power lines were on the 1500 block of Seventh Street and were likely caused by weather, Manitoba Hydro media relations officer Peter Chura said in an email.
The original outage, which was reported at about 8:15 a.m., caused only one block of homes and businesses to lose power, but Hydro had to turn off additional power in order to do the repair, he said.
» alambert@brandonsun.com