Students dismissed early due to power outage

Samo students were dismissed at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, May 16 due to a power outage.According to a representative from Southern California Edison, a construction crew working on the Palisades Garden Walk  lodged a foreign object in the power equipment and damaged underground service. The blackout affected 3,000 customers and in some areas power was not restored until 4:30 a.m. on Thursday morning. The power outage only affected Southern California Edison customers.The outage affected a large part of Santa Monica. The grid included was Ocean Avenue to the west, 20th Street to the east, Marine Street to the south and Arizona Avenue to the north.The power went out at around 12 p.m. and power was restored at Samo between 2 and 3 p.m., according to I-House Principal Renée Semik. All students were dismissed except those taking the Advanced Placement (AP) exam for Statistics which was held in the cafeteria."They were just bummed because everyone else got to leave at one, but I told them 'you'll have a test that's done and you won't have to late test,'" Semik said. "I think most people gear up for an exam, and they want to take it when it's supposed to be taken."Some AP Statistics students were frustrated that they could not participate in the early dismissal."I've always wished for a snow day and I guess that was as close as we're ever going to get," senior Peter Harding said. "It was a little annoying."At most schools when there are snow days the students have to make up the days at the end of the year. However, according to Samo principal Laurel Fretz this will not be a problem."We build extra minutes into our school year, just in case [so] we will not need to make up any minutes," Fretz said.According to Fretz, students were dismissed due to safety issues."Samohi has many classrooms without windows, such as in the bottom of the language building, the dance room, Barnum, as well as offices," Fretz said. "Without enough light students or employees might trip, fall, and hurt themselves."Though we lost instructional minutes, most students were ecstatic about the early dismissal."The blackout gave us unexpected time to relax and it was a great way to destress after the English [Language and Composition] AP," junior Amanda Bang said.Eloise GrahamNews Editoregraham@thesamohi.com