LORENA, Texas — Lorena ISD has announced it will hold classes on Wednesday, Sept. 18 after a power surge caused campuses to be evacuated due to smoke on Sept. 17, according to a statement from Superintendent Joe Kucera.
Kucera, along with officials from the Lorena Fire Department and the Lorena Police Department, held a news conference Tuesday afternoon and revealed that around 8:30 a.m., there was visible smoke coming from Lorena Middle School and that there was the smell of smoke at Lorena High School.
Fire Chief Dereck Roper reassured that no fire was found; only that he believes the smoke was caused by city-wide power surges involving a local electric utility company.
"We had been previously notified by Oncor there was an outage affecting the City of Lorena. We had an outage with the fire station, I know that there were several buildings on back-up generators before this event," Roper said.
Roper added that was no danger to the public.
Initial inspections revealed that the affected schools' air conditioning units were damaged.
"I believe the power surge caused the motors in our AC units to overheat," Kucera said. "We're going to see how much damage is in those AC units... and I don't know how many AC units we lost."
Kucera added that he knew at least two AC units at the affected campuses were impacted, "and it could be more." Kucera said officials were going to spend the rest of Tuesday afternoon to assess the damages and take on any repairs that may be needed.
"Safety was our first concern and the positive thing that I can report is that all of our kids remained safe throughout this process," Kucera said.
Kucera thanked parents and students for their patience through the situation, and thanked first responders who helped assist.
"We were able to keep students safe and get everyone home due to the collaborative efforts of Lorena ISD faculty and staff and area first responders," Kucera said in a statement.
Kucera said the district has been given the all clear to have school on Sept. 18. He stated there may be a "residual smell of smoke" in the front foyer of the middle school, but that the impacted AC units are being repaired and should not impact the school environment.
Kucera's full statement can be found at this link.
Watch the press conference below:
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