Valhalla Elementary School was without power for almost an hour this afternoon, due to a power fluctuation.

At 12:51 p.m. the main switch at the school shut off in response to a power fluctuation. Puget Sound Energy informed Federal Way Public Schools administration that the outage was not neighborhood-wide and school staff isolated the problem to the switch, according to Debra Stenberg, communications director.

“Our newer schools have these switches to prevent damage to electric motors in the heating and other systems, as well as to electronics, when there are power surges,” Stenberg said. “The switch did exactly what it’s supposed to do.”

The power came back on around 1:40 p.m. Students and staff continued their day as normally as possible and parents were immediately notified through the emergency call out system.

Power outages happened at other schools this month as well. Lakota Middle School and Decatur High School lost power Oct. 17, due to a blown transformer. Classes continued as normal and student and staff were safe.

For more information, visit the district Facebook page at www.facebook.com/fwps210.