Power Outage Leaves Clarksburg Schools in the Dark

The second morning of instruction at three Clarksburg schools took a darker turn than exacted, no it wasn’t heavy or evil subject matter, it was a power outage which affected three schools in the area, including Clarksburg High School.

About 1,800 PotomacEdison customers were left without power on Wednesday morning September 6. The outage was caused by an equipment failure of a lightning protection wire. According to PotomacEdison spokesman Todd Myers, an uncharged lightning protection line snapped and fell onto a charged line which created a short in the system at about 8:25 am. He said the problem occurred near the intersection of Frederick Road and Stringtown Road.

The outage affected homes, businesses and traffic signals along Rt. 355.

The outage also affected three schools in the Clarksburg area, Clarksburg Elementary School, Rocky Hill Middle School, and Clarksburg High School, according to MCPS spokesperson Gboyinde Onijala.

At 8:41 Clarksburg High School sent out a Tweet saying the school had lost power. “All students are safe in classrooms with staff.” According to MCPS, learning continues through the power outage. “Instruction continues during an outage but students and staff typically shelter-in-place,” said Onijala.

Myers at PotomacEdison said that crews had been dispatched to the problem and power was restored to most of the area by 10:00 am. Clarksburg High Tweeted out that the power had been restored at 9:44 am.

Captions:

Top: Clarksburg High School and about 1,800 other PotomacEdison customers were without power for a little more than an hour on Wednesday morning after an equipment failure.

Next: Traffic signals on MD 355, like this one at Foreman Boulevard and Frederick Road were dark. Motorists treated them like four-way stop signs.

Photos by Germantown Pulse.