BOWIE, Md. -
A different kind of fallout Wednesday from Super Storm Sandy in Bowie, MD. The first day back to class for some students was cut short thanks to a partial power outage at their school, Bowie High School. The end result was an early dismissal, but getting to that point today was confusing for some kids, trying for the school's staff and upsetting for some Bowie High school parents.
"When you don't have lights you don't really have instruction," says Diane Parks, whose son Sean is a senior at Bowie High. "I don't see how kids can understand or learn in poorly lit classrooms."
"While I was sitting in class," Sean Parks told us, "my teacher wasn't going to teach because he was like 'you guys should go home.'"
"Some classes had light," says student Alexander Thomas. "But most of the school was pitch dark."
Bowie High School has a student population of 2900. Its principal is Dr. Drewana Bey.
"We've been told it's a transformer issue," says Dr. Bey. "And that's the reason why we didn't have full power."
But school administrators decided to start the school day anyway.
"How can you learn when the lights are off?" asked student Labi Olorunfemi. "Everybody was just doing their own thing."
Dr. Bey says 90 percent of the school had electricity this morning. "But then as the time went on," she told us, "as the day went on we started to lose power. And so once we reached a point where we were at about 50 percent we had to make the decision that it was just in the best interests of the students to have an early release."
That came a little after noon - two hours early. Not all parents critical of the administration.
"I think the principal did the right thing of keeping the kids there," says Eric Davidson.
Late Wednesday, BG&E crews were apparently able to isolate the problem, repair the blown transformer and get all the lights back on at Bowie High where we're told classes will resume in the morning - a full day's schedule planned for students.
