Pasco power outage impacts 160 homes, school on day with triple-digit temperatures

A bad underground cable left 160 people without power for a little over two hours in Pasco and a school moved over 450 students because of no air conditioning.

Franklin County PUD says the power outage impacted around 60 homes from Sylvester to Lewis, 4th to 6th this morning around 9:30 a.m. In order to fix the problem however, the company had to turn off power to 160 customers in that area, for about 2 1/2 hours.

Leslee Caul with the Pasco School District says when school officials realized the power outage was not a quick-fix, they went into the evacuation procedures. Caul says Longfellow is one of the receiving schools in the plan, and one they've used in drills. She says even with the move, school will do everything possible to continue the school day as normal.

"They are safe, they are cool, a majority of them are in the gym but because of the 6th grade transition, we have several empty classrooms and several of them were able to go into empty classrooms," says Caul.

Unrelated to the power outage, Franklin STEM students will be moved to Chiawana because of broken A/C. Parents are able to pick up students there before the end of the day.

Parents must show a photo ID to be able to pick up their students.

School officials say students from Longfellow Elementary will be returned to school if air conditions return to normal or at the end of the school day, whatever comes first.

Officials say Franklin STEM will be returned to their schools at the end of the day to be picked up, walk home or catch their bus.