Students evacuated to VMC, then dismissed early
Last Wednesday’s school day was cut short, but it had nothing to do with the weather.
Classes at each school in Tracy let out at 11:30 a.m. because of a malfunctioning exhaust hood in the kitchen area at the high school. The Tracy Fire Department and Minnesota Energy responded to the scene to investigate where what was assumed to be a leak was coming from.
“We used the opportunity as a drill — take your coats, go outside, we’ll go to the football field to regroup,” Tracy Area Public Schools Supt. Chad Anderson said. “The fire department and gas company were immediately called and they came out and started their investigation immediately.”
Students at the high school were immediately evacuated to the football field after the smell was detected, and then were bused over to the Veterans Memorial Center. The decision was later made to dismiss K-12 students altogether. Students in grades 7-12 were picked up at the VMC by buses at 11:30 a.m., with elementary school pickup at 11:45 a.m.
Students with their own vehicles were bused back to the high school to pick up their vehicles, but were not allowed back into the building for any reason. Also, all after-school activities were canceled.
St. Mary’s students also were dismissed because they follow the same bus schedule as the public schools.
After the natural gas odor was detected, the issue was immediately reported to the building administration, who then made the decision to evacuate all students and staff from the building to the TAHS football field.
The gas company and fire department determined the cause of the problem was that the exhaust fan in the kitchen malfunctioned, causing the kitchen appliances to operate inefficiently, which led to the gas smell.
“You need to have an exhaust fan to pull that air out,” Anderson said. “We can use our other economy ovens that don’t require that exhaust fan.”
As a precaution, all gas lines to the high school building were shut off, and the building was ventilated; all gas lines were inspected by the fire department and gas company and tested. The system was re-energized and inspected again, showing no leaks. The fan was repaired and school was in session on time Thursday, a new exhaust fan was ordered as well.
Anderson said the issue had nothing to do with the recently-completed construction project.
“The exhaust fan in the kitchen was not part of the scope of work,” said Anderson.
Anderson said it was a more of a relief than anything to find out the cause of the problem was what it was, as opposed to some kind of leak.
“Right away, we couldn’t figure it out … where is this coming from?” he said. “Going through all the ceiling tiles, going through all the pipes — it was none of that. So we circled back; we realized that when that fan doesn’t work, it cannot suck out the air in the kitchen. But it was not a leak. There was a gas smell, but there was no leak. (Gas) was not escaping like it was supposed to.”
Anderson said the silver lining to Wednesday was that staff was able to use the occasion to practice emergency drills, which includes the evacuation of the school building and subsequent busing of the students to the VMC.
“This is part of some of our emergency evacuation plans — go to the football field, bus from there to downtown; if you look at the cup as half full, this was a chance to practice a drill without preparing for it,” said Anderson. “If you practice a drill, you can plan everything; so this gave us an opportunity to practice our drill to the VMC and what we need to improve on.”
