Around 9:00 a.m. today classrooms burst with an uproar as the lights and electricity go out. They flicker a few times and finally extinguish. Soon after, teachers gather in the halls to figure out what happened and students are left in their classrooms with little information given to them.

Director of Dining and Services Sarah Stone explains how the cafeteria operated under emergency conditions like today.

Q: What was your first reaction to the power outage?

A: I knew I had to find information. I went out to the kitchen and found out where we were in terms of preparedness and what we could do from there.

Q: What time do you start making food and getting prepared for lunch?

A: We’re a satellite kitchen, so we have girls getting here at 6:45 a.m. to start prepping food. Around 9 a.m. the food service trucks go out to the schools we give the food to. We had a lot of food already prepared, just not cooked.

Q: How does the power outage affect your ability to make lunch?

A: First we have to check with the main office and see what’s going on. From there, we check with Consumers Energy and find when it is estimated to get power back. It’s been kind of crazy. We had to figure out how much time we would have to make enough food.

Q: What was your backup plan in case the power didn’t come back on?

A: We made cold food items and were planning on taking everyone’s ID number down with paper and pencil. In the worst case scenario, we would just order pizza from a store. Thankfully, the power came back so we had both hot and cold options, as well as working computers.