by Delaney Dine

What happens in a school when the lights go out in the middle of the day?

On September 1 between 10:15 and 10:29 a.m., all of the lights in Bellbrook High School flickered out.

No one’s Chromebook would turn on. The wifi was off. The intercom wouldn’t work. The only communication staff had was through the Remind app and walkie-talkies.

“[Principal] Mr. Hann communicated through Remind, and he has an emergency call list for just the teachers,” business teacher Mr. Craig said. “And he was texting us what was going on.” Teachers were also relaying information to one another via word of mouth.

The crash took place on Upper Bellbrook Road. The driver veered off to the right of the road, hitting a utility pole that caused a power outage for four of five buildings in the school district.

The driver was taken to the hospital by EMTs. According to a public records request, he claimed the cause of the accident was a vehicle defect.

The effects of the power outage ranged widely. While some teachers were forced to set their schedules back a day, others sent work home with their students.

How teachers responded depended on their teaching style. “I’m very paper pencil-y when I teach,” special education teacher Ms. Tomlin said. “There’s always a way for us to do whatever the activity is. Analog I guess: the old school way.”

“I was giving a test that day,” science teacher Mrs. Mann said. “My first two classes took a test and my other four classes did not.” This caused some periods to have to catch up to the earlier classes and some classes had to take a pause.

“When we did resume Monday, I had a lot of just study halls in my classes,” junior Jordan Frantz said.

Because the power did not return, students were dismissed shortly after lunch, but that brought another dilemma. With many students just starting to gain their licenses, the amount of traffic that the crash caused made it difficult for students and teachers to leave when they were released.

“Teen drivers, well I’m one myself, but I just know there’s not a lot of patience there,” Frantz said. “So pulling out of the parking lot was making me a little stressed. It’s always one car goes and the other car goes and people weren’t following that so it just made things ten times more difficult.”

Others who do not have the option to drive yet had to take the bus home. “We had to wait just about half an hour for the buses to come,” sophomore Sara Fussinger said.

This incident drew some parallels to a previous crash and power outage two years ago. “We thought that this one was smoother, a bit more better managed,” secretary Mrs. Cordonnier said. “The kids stayed calm this time, rather than chaotic.”

“This one was definitely different because the first power outage my freshman year someone just hit an electrical box and everything was fine,” Frantz said. “But this one I feel like was a little bit more serious because someone could’ve possibly been injured.”

“I feel like it was different because everything was out,” senior Cali Barker said. “I don’t even think the emergency lights came on. And the clocks were out. Everyone was allowed to leave.”

“The first time it happened, it was kind of disbelief,” Mr. Craig said. “But this time around after like 15 minutes, I was thinking it might be the same situation.”

“One of the things I remember was we didn’t have school the next day because we still couldn’t get the power back on so that instance was more severe than this one,” Ms. Tomlin said.