Moore County Schools students missing fourth straight day despite power restoration

Students are spending another day out of class on Thursday.

WRAL News asked Moore County Schools leaders why school remains closed for students even though power is back on.

There are 22 schools in the district where students are not in the classrooms for the fourth day in a row. Officials have decided to only make today an optional workday for staff as a precaution.

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Whenever there’s a power outage, it's a huge undertaking to prepare school buildings to welcome staff and students back inside safely.

A spokesperson with the district told WRAL maintenance teams have been out since Monday surveying buildings, checking HVAC systems and more.

“We need to make sure the HVAC system is up and running, the phone lines are running, the internet is running and all the computers are powered up," said Catherine Nagy with Moore County Schools. "We have blown fuses, things like that. That probably will need to be replaced and reset and the cafeteria is really a central part of it.”

Bus drivers have been out on the roads making sure their routes are safe to drive and that traffic lights are working.

A big concern is the safety of food products inside cafeterias.

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"Our staff has really pulled together to really make sure that our school stayed safe and that we could save as much product out of our cafeterias as we could to minimize the financial impact of this event," said Nagy.

Transportation is another point of concern.

"The traffic lights are really an issue," said Nagy. "It's really not safe to put buses on the roads where the traffic lights are not working. So we're going to be monitoring that situation as well."

Nagy said school leaders are still discussing their options around how to make up the four days. The district anticipates returning back to all normal operations on Friday. An official decision will come on Thursday afternoon.