Students at Clear Lake Elementary received a surprise when they arrived to school around 9 a.m. on Friday, March 12, – the building was evacuated due to a possible natural gas leak.
According to Assistant Superintendent Ron Franey, custodians at Clear Lake Elementary smelled natural gas outside the front of the building, near their entrance, when they arrived to school early in the morning. The custodians notified district administrators and immediately contacted Consumers Energy.
“The gas meter is located right by the custodian’s door in the front of the building,” said Franey. “This is where they could smell the odor before school started.”
Clear Lake students began arriving between 8:45 and 9 a.m. Due to the wind, the odor spread to the entrance way of the school. Franey stated that at this point, no one from Consumers Energy had arrived, and administrators decided to evacuate the students.
“We had to get the kids into the school so we could organize them and send them to the church,” explained Franey. “We had to wait for the walkers to arrive and also bring in extra buses since they had to be looped around.”
By 9:30 a.m., all of the students had been taken to Christ the King Lutheran Church where they watched Finding Nemo. Franey stated that at this point, a representative from Consumers Energy arrived at the school, but he was unable to repair the problem.
“He told us he thought it was a leaky regulator that had been put on a couple of days before,” Franey said. “He turned off the gas at this point.”
Franey added that a repair truck did arrive shortly after, but the workers did not have the proper parts for the regulator and another crew would be sent.
Around 10:30 a.m., Clear Lake students returned to the school. Franey stated that the Consumers worker had checked the building and surrounding yard for gas contamination, and “found there was no danger.”
The gas and heat were turned back on in the building around 11:30 a.m. Consumers Energy arrived again during the lunch hour to fix the problem.
Principal Jim Schwarz sent a letter home with students informing parents on the events that had taken place that day.