With power still out to several schools, Lawrence public school officials have decided to cancel classes again Friday. As local residents assess the damage caused by the ice storm, city officials are making plans to provide overnight shelter for people whose homes are without power. (See the video below.)

Faced with power outages at four schools along with several other safety concerns Lawrence public school officials have decided to call off classes for the third day in a row.

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Other Lawrence schools deciding to cancel classes Friday are: Raintree Montessori School, the Lawrence Catholic School (St. John’s and Corpus Christi campuses), Bishop Seabury Academy, First Presbyterian Preschool, Montessori Children’s House and the Lawrence Arts Center Preschool. Public schools in Baldwin, Eudora, Tonganoxie, McLouth, Oskaloosa, Perry-Lecompton and DeSoto also decided to cancel classes.

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“At this point, there are a variety of weather-related issues that are preventing us from going ahead with school on Friday,” said Julie Boyle, the school district’s communications director.

“For example, 40 percent of our bus routes are still iced over, which presents a safety concern for transportation,” Boyle said. “Most sidewalks on school campuses and many in our neighborhoods are still covered with ice. We have several buildings today without power and without heat and we’re not sure that will be remedied by tomorrow.”

Boyle said power remained out Thursday afternoon at Hillcrest, Woodlawn and East Heights elementary schools and parts of Central Junior High.

“We are working on some issues with leaking roofs and some ice and tree damage,” she said. “I think with all of these factors combined, we feel it would be prudent for the safety of our students and staff to cancel on Friday.

3,500 homes still without power

The wintry mix of freezing rain and ice coated power lines and tree limbs, weighing many of them down. Residents were reporting broken power lines and tree limbs down throughout the city Thursday.

Cynthia McCarvel, a spokeswoman for Westar Energy (formerly KPL),
said Thursday night there were still about 3,500 residences without power scattered throughout Lawrence and in rural areas of Douglas County. McCarvel said she did not have a timetable for when the power would be restored.

The Community Building, 115 W. 11th, will be open throughout the night to serve as an emergency shelter. The Lawrence Parks and Recreation Department was working with Emergency Management staff to make preparations.

Lawrence Douglas County Fire & Medical were advising people overnight to stay away from the power lines that snapped and fell.

“We had roughly 200 calls,” said Brian Lawrence, battalion chief. “Most of those were sparking electrical lines.”

East Lawrence had the majority of the downed trees and power lines, although many came from the central area of Lawrence and some on the west side near downtown, he said.

Lawrence urged residents to stay away from the downed lines and to report them to authorities.

“We’ll go there and set up some safety measures if the lines are hot,” he said.

Besides the downed power lines, the evening was fairly quiet for fire and medical personnel.

“Surprisingly enough, we did not have any weather related calls, such as falls or major vehicle accidents,” Lawrence said. “We did have a couple of sledding accidents at KU.”

Cancellations and closings

Early Thursday morning, Haskell Indian Nations University announced it would cancel classes, joining most of the area’s schools in closing for the day.

Kansas University, Baker University, Lawrence public schools and most of the area’s public and private schools made announcements they were going to close Wednesday afternoon and Wednesday night.

The following is a list of schools that cancelled classes Thursday:

KU, Baker, Haskell, Lawrence Public Schools, Bishop Seabury Academy, Veritas Christian School, Lawrence Catholic Schools (St. John’s and Corpus Christi campuses), Green Pastures Preschool, Head Start and Community Children’s Center, Montessori Children’s House, First Presbyterian Preschool, Raintree Montessori School, Sunshine Acres Montessori School, KU Strategic Learning Center, 1 of a Kind Child Care.

Ballard Community Center, Bert Nash Center, Children’s Learning Center, Cottonwood Inc., Meals on Wheels, Lawrence Public Library, have also been closed for Thursday.

The following area school districts have also called off school Thursday: Baldwin, DeSoto, Eudora, Garnett, Louisburg, McLouth, Oskaloosa, Osawatomie, Ottawa, Paola, Perry-Lecompton, Tonganoxie, Wellsville and West Franklin.

Parks and recreation schedule

Because of the winter storm, the city’s parks and recreation department has altered
schedules for facilities and canceled all classes and adult and youth
sports leagues.

Parks and Recreation facilities will operate the following schedule for
Thursday:

Community Building, 115 W. 11th Street, closing at 6 p.m. for use as an emergency shelter overnight, if needed.
East Lawrence Recreation Center, 1245 E. 15th, will be closed Thursday until power is restored
Holcom Park Recreation Center, 2700 W. 27th, will close at 6 p.m.
South Park Recreation Center, 1141 Mass., will close at 5 p.m.
Lawrence Indoor Aquatic Center, 4706 Overland Dr., will have lap swimming until 5 p.m., and recreation swim, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. It will close at 5 p.m.
Nature Center, 2730 Harper Street, will close at 5 p.m.

Facing the mess

The parks and recreation department has announced a plan to aid homeowners with removing their downed tree limbs and branches. Property owners are
asked to place the fallen branches curbside, beginning next Tuesday or Wednesday.
City crews will pick up and chip the material at the curb on those days..

The curbside chipping will allow property owners to avoid bundling the
branches to meet the requirements of their regular trash pick up.

The curbside pick up will take approximately three weeks to complete.

If residents choose not to wait for curbside pick up, they can bundle limbs
that will then be picked up as part of the regular trash pickup schedule.

Limbs for regular trash pickup must be placed in bundles no more than five feet long
and no more than 18 inches in diameter, bound tightly and weighing no more
than 65 pounds. If residents use bags, they must be durable enough to
contain the limbs.

The City has not designated a public drop off site for tree limbs and
branches.

Early morning video

Below, a video shows several residents who were out early Thursday morning.

Kimberly Roberts, who lives just south of KU’s campus, said she noticed many downed trees while walking her dog, Kimba.

Chris Patterson, 1942 Ky., came outside before getting ready to work to assess the damage.

“It’s a quite a mess,” Patterson said, looking over the downed limbs around his front yard.