DERRY - In an effort to prevent schools from losing any perishable items during a power outage, the district is adding alarms to all its freezers.

Although the district has a number of checks and balances in place to help prevent the loss of food during power outages, business director Jane Simard said the alarms will add an additional level of security, especially on weekends.

"During Hurricane Sandy, we did not have alarms," said Simard. "However, because the maintenance staff and myself were all out there along with two of our food service managers, we really lost very little food. Having the freezer alarms is just another additional step."

The alarms are calibrated so that they will not go off if the freezers are defrosting or if an employee is going in and out of the freezer, Simard said.

If a freezer alarm does go off after school hours, it will be handled by Gary Webster of the maintenance department.

Simard said the freezer alarms should save money for the district, especially by being able to tell if any of the schools lose power on the weekends.Overall, Simard said, the food service department is well trained in making sure school food is at the proper temperatures.

"Our food services department is really astute at knowing the number of hours you have when things go off," she said.

The district follows a process that helps prevent food from spoiling if the power does go out, she said.

"Very rarely we will we lose food, because we will transfer it from one school to another in the case of a power outage," Simard said.

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