Los Altos High School went without electricity for two hours this morning before releasing its students early at 10:30 a.m., canceling all classes after third period. Due to the lack of power, the homecoming rally was also canceled and is now scheduled for Wednesday.

Los Altos High administration sent out a message before school today informing families that there was a power outage. According to Principal Tracey Runeare, school wasn’t initially canceled because the power — which was also out in other parts of Los Altos — was expected to return by 9:30 a.m. 

“We know that there was an outage in Los Altos that PG&E said was repaired, but for some reason, it was not repaired on our campus,” Runeare said. “It took, really, the entire day for PG&E to solve the issue, and power just came back at about 3:30 today.”

Runeare decided to end school early after PG&E gave a new estimate that power would be restored at 11 a.m. 

“I made the call to dismiss school early because we weren’t able to use our PA system the way we wanted to, to let people know what was going on,” Runeare said. “Communication was just so difficult.”

Aside from the loss of WiFi and lighting, some bathroom sinks and toilets also stopped functioning, leading some students and staff to believe that the plumbing had also been damaged. Runeare said no actual plumbing was damaged, however, and that only the automatic sensors were affected by the outage. 

Los Altos High has a revised schedule for the next two days; Tuesday’s schedule will be the same as a usual Monday schedule, and Wednesday’s schedule will be an assembly schedule built around the homecoming rally. Thursday and Friday’s schedules will remain the same, with minimum days to accommodate for the homecoming parade.