By the time the tentacles of Hurricane Sandy reached Warren County, their punch had diminished to a tap.
While winds were brisk and some trees and limbs came down at various places, there were no reports of major flooding and no state roadways were closed.
In reacting to the collective storm, Warren County School District officials took their time instead of preemptively canceling school for Tuesday.
"It was Superintendent (Brandon) Hufnagel's plan from the beginning to make sure there wasn't a premature closing," Director of Buildings and Grounds Services Norbert Kennerknecht said on Tuesday.
The plan called for personnel to be out early Tuesday morning checking the conditions of school facilities and transportation infrastructure.
"We had people out - Boyd Freeborough (Quality Assurance Supervisor), Dennis O'Toole (Maintenance Working Foreman) and David Undercoffer (Grounds Working Foreman) - at 4 a.m.," Kennerknecht said. "They split up the county and visited all the buildings to ensure that they had power and heat."
After they checked the buildings, the physical plant employees met at 5 a.m. at Beaty-Warren Middle School with Transportation Manager Mike Kiehl. There, they passed along their observations of road conditions.
Kiehl had been on the roads at 3:30 a.m. making sure conditions were safe for students and buses. He was also in contact with emergency agencies and PennDOT to check on potential problems.
With power and heat at all buildings and no serious problems related to the roads, "the decision was made to hold school," Kennerknecht said.
St. Bonaventure University dual enrollment classes at the Pine Grove Center on Tuesday were cancelled by St. Bonaventure.