It wasn't the start to the school day Manchester officials were hoping for Thursday morning after a transformer suddenly malfunctioned and caused a power outage at the middle school which ended up delaying bus arrivals.

JCP&L crews arrived on the scene and made quick repairs to the minor damages.

The culprit for the power outage...a squirrel that was caught in the transformer.

There's been no update on the condition of the squirrel or what happened after it was found in the transformer.

Manchester Superintendent David Trethaway wrote a letter to the community Thursday explaining the situation:

"I would like to take this opportunity to explain the situation that occurred today which resulted in an "unusual" opening of school for Middle School and elementary students and staff.

Sometime after 7:00 am, I received a call that a transformer had malfunctioned which caused a power outage at our Middle School.

At that time, the JCP&L crew repair crew was called and were not able to give an estimate of the time needed to make the repairs.

When students arrived at the Middle School, plans were put in place to move the students to an alternate setting in the event the repairs would take a significant amount of time.

Since the repair crew was now on scene, students remained on the bus while they quickly reviewed the problem to see what repair was needed.

Fortunately, the repair was minor and made quickly.

The cause of the outage was a squirrel that was caught in the transformer.

Obviously, an unusual situation that happened at the most inopportune time.

This event caused our elementary school buses to arrive later than planned, however, the priority was safety and supervision of all students.

While the situation occurred, an all-call announcement was made to inform parents of the delay as soon as possible.

While I apologize for the inconvenience, this was truly an unexpected occurrence on the first day of school. Please be assured that the buses will be arriving at the scheduled times tomorrow.

I would like to thank our staff, the Manchester Police and our students for their cooperation and understanding during this "strange" event.

I also want to thank our parents for their understanding and patience through the unusual first day of school."

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