Power Back at Royle School & All Over Town [UPDATE]

Update 1:19 p.m.:

Power was restored shortly before 1 p.m., according to a school receptionist. The Connecticut Light & Power website outage map shows no Darien residents currently without power.

Update 12:40 p.m.:

Royle Principal Keith Margolus says that other than being without power, the school is functioning relatively normally, with no other major problems.

This isn't the first time Royle has lost power and continued with its school day, he said.

"We still teach and learn, and we notified parents," he said. "It's business as usual, other than that the phones aren't working, and I'm not sitting with an [email] inbox full."

Without use of phones and computers, assistants in the school's principal's office didn't appear to have much to do. The reception area of the office, like the classrooms, had large windows that let in quite a bit of light from the cloudy sky. Hallways were very dark.

Margolus refused to let Darien Patch take a picture of the darkened hallways for security reasons, he indicated. Despite heightened security since the Newtown school shootings, however, no one asked a reporter for a photo ID to confirm his identity.

Outside, the windows were all dark, but the parking lot was full. Traffic lights at the intersection of Royle Road and Mansfield Avenue were dark.

Original article:

Royle School is without power, though students are continuing to work as usual, the elementary school’s principal said in an email sent minutes ago to district parents.

It isn’t clear what caused the outage.

Margolus said in his email that no one will be able to contact the school via phone or email until power is restored.

“We will not receive messages about changes in dismissal until after power is restored,” the email said. “Students who ordered lunch will have a choice of sandwich or bagel. We will let you know when power is restored.”

Darien and other area towns on Wednesday morning experienced very high winds together with rain, and branches could be seen in some town roads (see photo).

According to Connecticut Light & Power, 263 Darien homes currently are without power—about 3 percent of the utility’s customers here.

The National Weather Service is calling for periods of rain in Darien this afternoon, "mainly before p.m.."

Here's the rest of today's forecast: "High near 46. Breezy, with a east wind 16 to 21 mph becoming south 9 to 14 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80 percent. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible."

Darien Patch will update this story with more information as it becomes available.