I woke up in the dark. My sense of time had been lost and my eyesight had been compromised due to the unknown amount of time that my eyes had been blissfully shut. It was absolutely silent around me. The ringing in my ears was deafening and there seemed to be no sign of commotion anywhere. Where was everyone? I sat up and frantically looked for my phone, which I found beside me. It was 7:29 on a perfectly average Monday night on the Ojai Valley School Upper Campus, except for the loss of electricity.

No lights, no power, no preparation. I found myself mindlessly walking toward the lounge where forty-something girls stood scattered among the feelings of chaos. Dorm parents were ordering the students around like a sheepdog would herd petrified sheep into formations we call single file lines. There we were, forty-something girls, in the dark, trying to organize and comprehend why exactly they were all in the dark.

Earlier this year, the headmaster of the Ojai Valley School made a point of making sure that every student was well equipped with all camping gear for reasons that seem to make sense. He stated that students needed their camping gear in case of an emergency situation such as an earthquake or even maybe a black out. And where is everyone’s camping gear located? The tiny storage room inconveniently placed in the empty space along the upper wells of the staircase.

If an earthquake or a major catastrophe occurred there would be no time to grab more than forty backing-packing packs out of the single aisle storage room. It is understood that the faculty members have plans, but is the school really that prepared for a natural disaster? If the school can’t handle a blackout, how would it react to a real emergency?

Nobody knows. But better organization and planning for events such as these would help make easier the the strenuous job the headmaster manages while putting at ease the wandering minds of those students who care to think about the “what if’s.”