On September 26th Pine Grove elementary school had a natural gas leak scare at roughly 9:50 in the morning. After students in an art class smelled gas in their classrooms, the students evacuated the school for two hours and after a brief and informative school assembly, resumed normal activities. 

Two people, one a student, were brought to the hospital as a precaution, both being released in good condition and able to rejoin the school the following day. After an investigation, there was no evidence of any gas leak found. The cause of the smell is believed to be from a misfire from the HVAC units after brief power outages earlier that day.

During an art class that morning, Pine Grove Principal Mrs. Nicole LaPerriere was called down to the art room to inspect the smell that the students suspected was natural gas. After careful inspection, the building was evacuated. 

The evacuation went as smoothly as possible, LaPerriere said. All classes calmly went to their meeting points before evacuating further to St Mary’s Church, which is across the street from the school. Having practiced the same “I Love U Guys” evacuation and safety protocols as the high school and other schools in the district, the elementary school students handled the evacuation well, even getting compliments from Channel 7 reporter Jonathan Hall who did a story on the scene that evening. Pine Grove guidance counselor Mr. Kyle Campbell praised the response. 

“It worked like clockwork because of all the safety drills we’ve had,” said Campbell.

Firefighters and news stations made their way to the school to find out what had happened. The odor got traced to the HVAC units on the rooftops. The leaks inside the buildings were never any concern. National Grid, the gas inspector and the vendor for the HVAC fully inspected the units and were brought back online. Since that day, the units have been monitored, and no detections of additional odors have been found. Even on the day of the evacuation, no evidence of gas near the rooftop units were found. The findings on the cause of the odor pointed towards the rooftop unit shutting off the gas supply after failing to start as it is designed to do.

Earlier in the same morning, a brief power outage spread throughout the town, leaving many homes without power for a brief period. Unknown at the time, this would be the cause of the odor. The conclusion reached by the plumbing and gas inspector, as well as the HVAC vendor, was that the rooftop unit had a misfire while trying to restart after the power outages. Due to the strong winds that day, when the HVAC unit started up, it is thought to have caused a lingering gas odor that failed to be drawn into the intake of the unit and instead went into the classroom.

After a successful evacuation, the Triton staff said they are proud of the students for being so composed in the face of what seemed like danger. 

“The staff and the students were all cooperative and acted accordingly and we got back to school as soon as it was safe to do so,” said Campbell. “This is a great school and the kids are great and they really were cooperative. They knew it wasn’t play time, and the way they crossed the street with the police there guiding them into the end of St. Mary’s, they (the police) said that they did a nice job.”

Principal LaPerriere did not waste any time to inform the students. “When the students were at their rally points, I made an announcement on the walkie talkie about what to say to the students, to fill them in but not to set them in a panic,” said LaPerriere. “And then after it was all over we all assembled in the gym and we had an assembly.”

Both students and staff were back in the building at about 11:40. Afterwards, there was an informative assembly where all the staff and students were told all the details about what just happened by Principal LaPerriere and the firefighters, and congratulated them on such a successful evacuations. Luckily, the biggest changes in the schedules were delays in recesses and lunches.

Preschooler Emery Gael Ramirez was asked to summarize his view on the evacuation. He said “The evacuation era bien (was good) because they had a TV and then we lined up and then, but the firefighters were still there.”