The Austin Independent School District's Central Office will remain closed Thursday due to a power outage that occurred the previous night. The outage, which struck at around 11:30 p.m. on Wednesday, incapacitated the building's power completely and rendered its backup generator nonfunctional. This incident is forcing the rescheduling of several services, including employee onboarding and the provision of badging services.
With the power down, families requiring enrollment support were directed to their respective campuses or to school buses placed in the Central Office parking lot offering assistance from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., as KXAN reported. The office, situated at 4000 S. Interstate 35 Frontage Road, was further unable to field calls to central services due to the outage.
In response to the events, the district has announced that the usual Austin ISD Board Voting meeting, set for Thursday, has been relocated to the Austin ISD Performing Arts Center located at 1500 Barbara Jordan Boulevard. As per KVUE, individuals interested in signing up for public testimony were advised to call a dedicated number until 4:30 p.m. in light of the circumstances.
Wednesday's blackout came on the city's hottest day of the summer with temperatures tying for the ninth-hottest day on record at a high of 109 degrees. Most of the East Austin residents feeling the heat were left without power for about three hours. The cause, as shared by Mayor Kirk Watson with Austin Energy, "was related to high energy usage causing substation equipment to trip offline," KVUE reported. While power was restored for most around 9 p.m., concerns linger as to whether similar episodes might recur with the persisting high temperatures.
