Power Outage at Fairfield Elementary School

A back to school Monday at Fairfield Elementary School was complicated by a power outage that left students in the dark for a little more than an hour, school officials said.

The blackout, which affected 1,170 customers in the area, started at 8:35 a.m., according to LIPA spokesman Mark Gross. 

An animal made contact with one of the utility's lines causing equipment failure, Gross said. 

The school maintained "as normal a schedule as we could given the conditions," according to Robert Schilling the Massapequa School District's Executive Director for Assessment, Student Data & Technology Services. All students were safely in the building during the outage.

Power was restored at Fairfield by 10:10 a.m. and LIPA said that service has returned for all customers.

The blackout affected  customers south of Sunrise Highway between Seaford Avenue and Hicksville Road, Gross said.