ACIT Loses Power for 2 Hours

On Friday, February 18, around 10:20 a.m., the power at ACIT went down. Due to wind gusts of over 40 mph, the power line went out at the inspection station that connects to the school.
“A power line went down on 19th street in front of Motor Vehicle,” said ACIT security guard Mr. Levy. “It appears to be a tree that knocked down the power line which took out the power to our building.”
Two Atlantic Electric vehicles were sent to the site immediately.
“Atlantic Electric was very prompt, they’ve been on the scene probably for an hour about now,” said Mr. Levy.
With the help of more Atlantic Electric workers, the power went back on at around 12:30 p.m., earlier than expected.

Before the power kicked back on, the school ran on backup generators allowing some lighting into most classrooms, hallways, and bathrooms. With wifi unaffected, Chromebooks charged, and pencil and paper always ready, most classes resumed business as normal. Of course, some classes reliant on computer labs, like Programming and Computer Aided Drafted Design, were unable to do work because most of their assignments are at the mercy of desktop computers.
“We literally didn’t do anything, we just sat in class waiting to see if the power turned on,” said junior CADD student Axel Mayren.
Computer lab-based classrooms weren’t the only locations affected most by the outage. The cafeteria also had its own challenges to deal with. Without the power to heat up food for the approaching lunch periods, staff had to resort to hand-made sandwiches.
“The only thing that the power outages are affecting in the lunch line is where they serve the hot lunch,” said Chef Morse. “That [heating] device doesn’t work because there’s no electricity so it won’t keep things consistently hot for a long period of time.”
Despite two hours of lost power, the school day ended as any Friday would thanks to the hard work by the crew from Atlantic Electric and the efforts made by ACIT faculty and staff.