LORENA, Texas (KXXV) — “I know that there is someone on every campus that will care for my babies," said one teacher and parent for Lorena ISD, Lisa Key.
Lisa Key is a teacher and parent at Lorena High — that confidence in the school was put to the test Tuesday when students were sent home after a power outage hit the school and surrounding community.
"Immediately I just sent out that text and they got right back to me and said, 'She's in 'so-and-so class, I'll make sure that she's fine, we're going to evacuate and we take care of each other'," Key said.
Lorena ISD sent messages out to parents asking them to pick children up on all district campuses.
"This morning, emergency services responded to reports of smoke at the Lorena ISD School," said Chief of Lorena's Fire Department, Derek Roper.
"Upon investigation, it was determined that the smoke was caused by equipment damaged by power surges as a result of a local electric utilities company."
25 News spoke to the Lorena Elementary School principal who gave additional insight.
"There was a city-wide power surge, and it affected the area at most of our campuses," Liza Cunningham said.
"It also affected the HVAC units, and out of an abundance of caution because it's going to be so hot today we went ahead and evacuated the campuses."
The decision to send students home also came down to the school not having air conditioning due to the power outage.
Keys' children, Rex and Charlie, attend Lorena ISD — they shared their experience with 25 News.
“I wanted to know what happened, and why we were going home," Charlie Key said.
Once they found out all was well, time to worry turned into time to relax.
“Lay on my couch and watch TV," Rex and Charlie said.
Key says the school has a plan and system that works when things like this happen.
“We made sure that everything was covered and done the right way, and nobody released a kid unless we knew who they were going with," she said.
