Three SDOC Schools suffer Power Outage

Three schools suffered a power outage Thursday in the School District of Oconee County (SDOC). Walhalla Middle School, Oconee Academy and James M. Brown Elementary School briefly lost power after a tree limb fell and damaged a transformer at a nearby Duke Energy substation, explains Oconee County Schools Assistant Superintendent of Operations Steve Hanvey. “Yes we did have a power outage in Walhalla that affected several of our schools and the district office. James M. Brown Elementary, Walhalla Middle and Oconee Academy were all affected by an outage that was caused by a tree falling on a power line and bringing it down on Playground Road near Highway 183. Duke Energy worked on and it took them about an hour and 15 minutes or so to get fixed. We were able to continue on, most of our cafeterias had lunch ready and were able to just continue on serving lunch. At Walhalla Middle, we did have to send some food service folks over to help them and they ended up getting sandwiches toward the end of the lunch period for them. But we made it through that and then the power was restored about 1:30pm, so we were able to finish the day. Superintendent Dr. Michael Thorsland and I visited the schools to make sure everything was OK and the temperature was fine and that kind of thing. We had been given an estimate of an hour by Duke Energy, so we went with that and it worked out and we appreciate them getting it back up and running in a timely manner.” The schools used generators to keep the lights on while the power was being restored.