When the lights flickered, the power went out, and the wifi was down, the students and teachers at Big Spring realized how much they relied on the power.  Wednesday’s power outage was caused by an automobile accident at the intersection of Mount Rock Road and Graham Road.  

Dealing with power outages can be very difficult.  Bill August, principal, said, “It’s always a challenge.”  With no working landline phones, it was more difficult to communicate any news, so teachers and staff had to work together to communicate messages to the school.  Having a plan was also important.  August said, “It’s important to create a game plan that makes sense and have backup plans as well. Obviously we can’t stay the whole day without power, so we were communicating with upper administration about dismissal and with vo-tech as well to get them back early.”  Once the power finally came back, August had to create a schedule and get that out quickly.  Also, with many students on their phones on social media, some were spreading the wrong message.  August said “It was important that everyone was getting the correct news and working together to get through it.”   

Without power, it was extremely difficult for teachers to have class so some had to find other things to keep students busy for the period of time. Some students played games to keep busy.  Emily Stambaugh, freshman, said, “A couple of the other kids and I played corn hole the majority of the time.”    The majority of the school was able to play games or work on other schoolwork, however, band students continued on with their rehearsal.  Adam Nobile, band director, said “At first when power went out, I think it took everyone a few minutes to realize what had happened.  Once they did, and we realized we had enough lighting to continue between the emergency lights and the windows, we kept making music.”                     
The power was supposed to be on by 12:30 but came back on at 11, making it possible for students to have lunch, and visit periods 3,5, and 6. Students who were taking the Literacy Keystone when the power went out, had the second module of the test moved to Thursday afternoon.