A fallen tree cut power to Sagamore Hills Elementary School on Monday, Aug. 3, forcing the DeKalb County School District to bus students and staff to nearby Lakeside High School on the first day of the 2026-27 school year.
The tree crashed down near Alderbrook Road NE that morning, taking down power lines and triggering an outage that affected 127 Georgia Power customers, Fox 5 Atlanta reported. No injuries were reported.
The district confirmed students would spend the morning and lunch at Lakeside High, then return to Sagamore Hills for afternoon dismissal once electricity was restored. Georgia Power estimated crews would have power back by about 12:30 p.m., according to Decaturish.
Lakeside High is the feeder school for Sagamore Hills Elementary within the district's Lakeside cluster, making it the natural backup site.
No other DCSD schools reported power outages on the first day, a district spokesperson told WSB-TV.
Capital freeze backdrop
The outage added to what was already a complicated start for the district's more than 92,600 students. Days before classes began, the DeKalb County School Board paused more than $119 million in capital projects, including bus purchases and fire alarm upgrades at multiple schools, after a $12 million ESPLOST tax-filing error forced repayments to City Schools of Decatur and Atlanta Public Schools. We reported on the capital freeze July 31.
"I have heard from my colleagues in both Decatur and Atlanta Public Schools that we have been lovely to work with," Board Chair Allyson Gevertz said at the July 13 board meeting, where members discussed the fallout from the overpayment.
As recently as July 28, the district was promoting E-SPLOST-funded construction work underway at Sagamore Hills Elementary itself, alongside projects at Canby Lane Elementary and the International Student Center at Midway.
The capital freeze did not cause Monday's outage. But the coincidence underscores the infrastructure pressures facing DCSD schools as the new year begins.
Scene at the bus depot
While crews worked on Alderbrook Road, Interim Superintendent Dr. Norman C. Sauce III and Board Member Deirdre P. Pierce (District 3) were at the district's bus depot that same morning, sending off drivers with words of encouragement for the first day, according to the district's social media account.
As of Tuesday, Georgia Power had not confirmed whether power was restored on schedule.
