College evacuated because of gas leak
Ventilation system shut down
Chelse McKee, staff
Photo by Karen Asher
Around 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, Nov. 15, University College on the Fort Garry campus was evacuated due to a reported gas leak in the building.
While students huddled near the front entrance of the building, the fire warden came out to announce that “This [fire drill] is real” and for everyone to wait there until it was safe to come back inside.
Close to a quarter to noon, students were called back into University College to resume classes.
The gas leak was a strong diesel smell, according to complaints from third-floor class rooms. Shortly thereafter, an employee working in University College called in the emergency as a result of the complaints.
Despite the evacuation of University College classes, the student residences were not affected.
The diesel smell was suspected to be caused by a combination of roofing and machinery being used for the construction on the new archives addition to the Elizabeth Dafoe Library. Despite the affect on University College, the library remained unaffected from the smell and construction.
According to Paul Richards, fire marshal for the Fort Garry campus, this is the not the first incident of its kind, although he couldn’t comment on how often something like this had occurred before.
“I can’t be specific on that. The university’s been reproofing their buildings for the last couple years,” he said. “This happens once in awhile with other buildings depending on which way the wind blows and what activities are going on around campus,” said Richards.
After the evacuation, the outside ventilation system was shut down for the day to stop the diesel smell from entering the building as well as to air out the building. For the day, there was only internal air being circulated throughout the building.
There were reports of people feeling nauseated on the third floor, but regardless, Richards said, there was “no hazard to the people.”
He said that the smell was “no worse than a bus smell. ’Long enough . . . you do feel kind of nauseated.”
Due to the temporary roof construction, scheduled to be completed by Friday, Nov 16, University College was not shut down.
