CORPUS CHRISTI, Tx. — Students at West Oso Elementary had shortened school days and some employees at Corpus Christi City Hall had shortened work days after both buildings lost electricity in a weather-related power outage that affected more than 11,000 AEP Texas customers Wednesday.
"When the lightning was here, the lights turned off for some reason," West Oso Elementary School third grader David Ramirez said.
Unsure about when the power would come back on, school leaders opted to send students home 15 minutes early.
"They told us to go outside to wait for us to get picked up," third grader Kyl Castillo said.
It was a similar story at City Hall, only some workers didn't get to go home early.
"Because of the power outage we went down to a skeleton crew," Corpus Christi Director of Communication Kim Womack said.
City leaders sent home most employees after getting an estimate from AEP that the power wouldn't be restored until 5:30 p.m. at the earliest. The power came on well before that, but Womack expressed no regret over the early dismissal.
"It was just prudent to go ahead and go down to a skeleton crew and get those non-essential employees home with their families," she said.
Both City Hall and West Oso Elementary School should resume normal operations tomorrow. Fewer than 150 AEP Texas customers were without power as of 10 p.m. Wednesday.
